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Jack Prewitt
a lightning strike
illuminates the world…
I return
from a long journey
before the thunder claps
day lilies
emphatically dead
but upright
propriety requires
they be cut down
like stage curtains,
parting clouds uncover
the moon
not unlike the magic
when you enter my room
a blouse
of rippling red silk
in the front pew–
my wife turns my hymnal
the right way up
trailing its legs
the great white heron
leaves the lagoon
an emptiness as tangible
as the rock in my stomach
orange pickers
line the roadside fence
in torrid heat
a gangly boy is carrying
his dead dog home
on the mudflat
eastern curlews gather
for migration
this year you won't know
which day they leave
summer grass–
scattering her ashes
on his grave…
and as she would want it
some for their neighbours
take this toad
my gift of strangeness
for you
in a world everybody
wants to explain away
faded photo
of an old flame–
I hesitate
between garbage
and recycling bins
dawn dewdrops
sparkling on the grass…
how must it feel
to be small, inquisitive
and dressed in a red jumpsuit
Jack Prewitt is an itinerant Australian poet, with a home base in Sydney. He has written many tanka. A few have been published in Ribbons, Tanka Splendor, Tanka Calendar and elsewhere.
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