I went from white womb to buttery rectangular living. A corn-colored carpet, below a honey countertop, with a cut glass ashtray like a hive, my mother’s flaxen fingernails tap, taps, tapping her smoke rising, garland around our Christmas tree. The multi-color lights blink, blinks, blinking behind tingly tinsel. Quiet evenings, my sister pull, pulls, pulling my daffodil dress. She never wanted me to learn to walk, but through the window I can see a dijon drain that drip, drips, dripping water on the gravel driveway. All white stones in this neighborhood. And they crunch, crunches, crunching under the steps of my father’s boots home from the night shift just in time to give us a smile and catch a banana sunrise. It was some people’s vacationing, but it was my home.
One thousand square feet;
every rectangle’s the same
just a larger womb.
Artwork Mobile Acres Lane by Joyce M Jacobs
This piece was written for d’Verse’s Monday Haibun challenge. Lillian tasked us with writing into our earliest memories, without using photos or stories told to us, and then crafting a Haibun.
A HAIBUN IS: 1 to 3 succinct prose paragraphs that must be a true accounting, not fiction, followed by a haiku (three lines, 5-7-5 syllables, that includes a seasonal reference and has a direct or subtle relationship to your prose paragraphs, without condensing or summarizing them). This time you do not necessarily have to follow the Japanese tradition of including a kigo or kireji in your haiku. If you’d like to strictly follow that Japanese tradition, look back at my dVerse New Year’s Haibun prompt on January 4th this year for an explanation of those terms.
Yard Sale of Thoughts 
Leave a reply to Ron. Cancel reply