Editor’s Note — to learn more about Tanka poetry, click here to read Michael Dylan Welch’s accompanying article.

Missing Poems

this is but a moonless night,
and my pillow has no tear stains—
it is in the grocery aisle
amid the frozen vegetables
that I long for you

my pen poised
above the notepaper—
no words come
for my friend
moving away

where the rain-deepened creek
rushes into Buntzen Lake
I think to myself, here
I would have to raise my voice
were I with someone

I miss you in this evening rain
and knowing that I have no idea
if you miss me too
makes me miss you
even more

 morning mist—
I slow down
on the sidewalk
to stay behind the woman
wearing my wife’s perfume

I’d abandon all my peaches
to exceed my joy
from a thousand nightly dreams—
just one nod from you
passing in the market

     (after Ono no Komachi)

the rose you gave me
has dropped all its petals
to the windowsill—
overnight, I did not hear the rain
as each petal fell

on the day
my old girlfriend
moves away,
I change my calendar
to a picture of spring

trimming my nails
on a summer afternoon,
I think of you—
yesterday you told me
you just cut your hair

reading her letter again
on my afternoon walk . . .
a leaf falls
never to return
to its branch

I am at your door, knocking—
as I turn away
in a gathering rain
I wonder if you stand at my door,
knocking, knocking

so lonely
again this night . . .
the moonlight
spills over the levee
toward your street

you speak of the distance
between us now
yet still I remember
the smallness of your breasts,
how they delighted me

you would not sleep on the pillow
I shared with a previous lover—
would you come now,
now that I have
a hundred new pillows

compared to broad night
the darkness of your love withheld
is a deeper darkness, still
I long for you
for the cold frost of dawn

like a songbird released
from the bounds of a cage
I dance in the light
released from old love
and yet . . . and yet . . .

for now the roses bloom,
but tomorrow
when their fragrance has gone,
will you still remember me
and my poem?

I am awake tonight
not because of a bright moon
or lovesickness,
but mere insomnia—and you,
you would not care the reason

this cold lonely night
without you, with no chance
of seeing you again,
how I wish
I could turn off the moon

Salt and Pepper Poems

the book of love poems
laid aside . . .
through the window
I see a man and woman
get into a London taxi

     (after Virginia Woolf)

freeway empty
on Christmas morning—
the space
where the skid marks
change direction

two cars backing up
towards each other
in the clinic parking lot—
is this, like the morning’s diagnosis,
what the future holds?

jotting down
my doctor’s appointment—
an eyelash
stuck to the nib
of her ballpoint

at the end of the day,
I clamber down a flight of stairs—
what is it like, I wonder,
to do this in smoke and dripping water
one hundred times

autumn rain
begins to fall . . .
an eviction notice
blows from somewhere
down the street

puddles
in the gutter . . .
a man sleeps
in the darkened doorway
of the pet shelter

missing-child poster
stapled to a telephone pole—
my neighbour’s porchlight
still on
at 3:00 a.m.

babies asleep
in facing strollers
the rise
and fall
of their mothers’ voices

scattered clouds—
the pieces of bright sulfur
we place by the tracks
to mark
where our pennies are

an overcast day
without rain—
she sends me e-mail
to tell me
of her new boyfriend

a book on Hiroshima—
in the picture
of survivors
the one man
with closed eyes

she rises quickly
to answer the phone—
the empty rocking-chair
slows
its rocking

doing laundry
after the argument—
for a moment
she holds his best shirt
by the collar

dried persimmons
on the kitchen counter—
again you tell me
of your son’s
promotion

I tell her I grow old
have a paunch and need new clothes
that the wild geese have flown
and winter is approaching
—my mother laughs

father’s letter
put back in the envelope—
mother, he says,
has facial palsy
and a new dress

April comes
and now you are gone,
you, who told your guardian angel
each year on your birthday,
not yet

words do not come
for you
on your passing
till the first warm day—
the blossoming plum

overcast sky—
for the first time
I wonder
where my parents
will be buried

These words I write
Again and again—
Nothing in them adequately reveals
Knowledge or emotion,
And yet again I write them

the salt and pepper
together on our table—
you lift them
and swoosh off the tablecloth,
set them down again, touching

Luggage Poems

all my books collect dust
except the one of love poems
you gave me that day
when the spring rains
kept us indoors

my lips always tingled
when I kissed her—
true love, she whispered
I didn’t say
cat allergy

the way you look at me
while I rub your arms—
you are the painting
I have never painted
a thousand times

summer breeze
lifts a corner
of our picnic basket—
I place a grape
on your outstretched tongue

perhaps I dream
to much of you—
but, for all the world
that summer cloud
is the shape of your face

these roses
in a porcelain vase—
I cannot believe
yet I want to believe
they are from you

she points to the sundog
and asks
if it means anything
I tell her it means
I love you

our ladder propped
against the gutter—
you turn to see
if I am here
steadying it

jingle of the dog’s collar
out in the hall—
we pause
in our lovemaking,
Christmas Eve

morning sun
warming our sheets . . .
for a moment
as you slide your body down,
your nipple in my navel

a snail has left
its delicate silver trail
on my book of love poems
left out on your porch
overnight

at last we depart
after lingering
in embrace—
the echo of your footsteps
in the fog

ink stain
on the pillow slip—
what else but write
can I do
while you’re gone

her plane disappears
into starlight . . .
and somewhere
in her luggage
my love poem