HE SAID / SHE SAID

Two-handed, unsigned renga
haiku/senryu


dragging up his sled --
one more swoop down Suicide Hill
darkness coming on


on the way there, my shadow
on the way back, nobody


leaves skitter the sidewalk:
a dark pleasure, our feet
crushing their dryness


crossing three time zones
gray wings softly quiver


that lit stone in the sky,
we look to it to harvest
foolish hopes


with their new pencil-boxes
they go where they must go


white sidewalk blossoms
no one sweeps them up, no one
walks around them


misted car windows: a solitude
he'd rather not wipe away

         
laying down quiet baby
unzipping snow jacket --
her hothouse flower


not the frozen lake, so silken:
the falling through


she begins to forget
where seeds are planted
faithful, frozen

                            
New Year's breakfast:
greedily eating the sun


morning glory
left wired by the cold snap --
the bruising season
              
               
sweeping past stoic drivers
windshields of weeping willows


how they've flowed away
to this drowsing warmth,
all those years of Boston ice!


the appointed hour in the park
maybe too early...her winter hands


showy April moon
yellow shout from the sky:
"Wake up! Wake up!"


she studies the sacred text...
at the window, golden forsythia


along curbs on Bath Street,
amid cups, paper, turds, butts,
the newly-flowering trees


she even named them, the children
she imagined having with him
 

idle girl in the plaza
smoke circling her fingers...
far above, office phones ring


old gent, though it's June --
death-cold grips his feet

                 
catching the big wave
he tumbles on and on
to a final slow slide

  
the warm aroma of this air
does it come from Zanzibar?


scars too many to count:
scratching chigger bites
till each one bleeds


on the sunny porch
even Buddha reclines


no more allegories!
nightcrawlers help
sweeten the garden


buried lumpy potato
yields delicate white blossoms


seen above State Street
a yellow moon...no, streetlight,
the true moon pale, cold
   

along the black mountains
a platinum light                                

Cissy Ross and Barry Spacks

If you've any comments on their renga, Cissy Ross and Barry Spacks would be pleased to hear from you.