tanka

I had surgery on Friday.  Today I wrote this tanka,  it has been changed into a tanka sequence.  It was accepted for publication.  I was thrilled.

Coming Out

shrouded in mist

I wear a torn place

on my sleeve —

turning like a mirror

on a string

a key

in a lock,

I have

no more tongue

than a wound

beads

of an abacus—

the shed skin

of a snake remembers

what it once held

calculating

all the ways I numbed myself

casting minute

after minute into the wind . . .

taking off the mask