Uncontrollable Haiku

 

The Belvidere Oasis

is built above the interstate.

We grip burgers at a window seat

as the traffic pours toward us.

Collision seems inevitable:

semis pass under, sometimes 

two at once with rhyming thunder. 

Say two maple leaves

from the same tree are

blown to separate locations.

One floats on the lake. The other 

lies on grey pebbles.

This is my divorce.

This is the truck stop after divorce.

Brother one day when we were boys

we pissed outside standing 

90 degrees from each another, crossing 

streams to produce an intersection 

of pale uric gold.

We did this in ceremonial promise

that we'd be brothers forever

no matter what. The stand of pines

surrounding us served as collective

climbable witness. 

All done. All done. Brothers forever.

(shake it, zip it.)

Now you guide me to Minnesota

after a manic episode of mine

coinciding with my marital leaf-parting.

You say I can start a new life,

but what will be new about it?

Nothing but pain will come of it.

Trees in their autumn beauty

speak with their leaves not at all

from my island distance.

Still, I take some heart knowing

that that liquid oath of ours proceeding

from the bladder of childhood

cashes itself in today, splashing 

my walking shoes of ignominy

with familial grace and lavalier tongue.

HB