Poets' Practice Pad

Cracked Stein and the Cello Missing a String
                                        a haibun

Rust stained driveway stretches in front of the garage door, its brown pain peeling. Discolored clothes on hangers lock eyes with the bric-a-brac on the card table.

Inside disorder,
a spell is cast on huge stains;
you find, you purchase.

An ancient rocking chair establishes a sway with some help from the breeze, knocking down the cello leaning to it. I help the cello lean against the wall. The cello tells me stories of beautiful hands sliding the bow, in rhythmic accompaniment.

My sad confession:
I crooned, pinned to her legs,
half alive half dead.

A furtive glance from the sun illuminates the cello's wood as if it is the moon, ripped from the night sky. My heart beats together with its eerie, distant music.

He left her; she died.
I poured over her body
and broke a string.

On the card table, stands a cracked stein, sidelined, but still inviting. I pick it up instinctively. The cello begs.

Be careful with that;
on the crack, lies his last sip
before he raced off.

I hear the owner coming my way. She tells me: "That was my father's beer stein; you can have it for free." I point to the cello against the wall, standing fragile in open space. "That, too, was my father's. It has a crack in the body and the bow's missing."

Still, mind's brew gives life
to victims of conjecture:
the cello and stein.

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