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Haiku Free Verse Prosies
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From the high plains and the prairies I hitched,
dragging my knapsack behind me.
You farmed this land for twenty years.
Roses cover your arbor.
You invite me to stay, to care for your pigs
and your kitchen garden.
Digging in the good, clean earth,
I feel a peace I may have never known before.
Years ago, the buzz of the road penetrated my bones.
I soak for hours in your tub to remove it.
But it still calls. Rested and clean,
I remember nights under the stars
with long-haired strangers:
poets, vagabonds, and prophets,
all of us grimed from travel, but dancing
and singing in graveyards,
indiscriminate fucking in the backs of trees.
You find it disgusting.
You use this word with the certainty of one
sick of travelling in discomfort.
But I remember without remorse
the damp that used to clench my back
after a night on the cold ground.
From your soft, clean bed,
it doesn't seem that bad.
In the summer, the sheets stifle me
I throw the covers off.
When you are fast asleep,
I wander out past the garden
and lay my body on the grass
beneath the stars.
Frances Donovan
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