Salad Anniversary -A book about Haiku

Your left hand,

exploring my fingers one by one-

maybe this is love

Secretly I try on your jacket,

drinking in your smell,

and strike a pose like James Dean

Remembering your joke,

I giggle out loud

In the middles of a crowd

Ring after ring tell me you’re out-

I listen fondly,

Grateful for any clue

Admonished to stop writing of romance-

What’s poetry, then?

Just another way to get a man?

-Machi Tawara copyright 1989