Ten Haiku about the Limitations of the Heart with One Left Out
- Ten Haiku about the Limitations of the Heart with One Left Out
The mirror reflectsthe face that reflects the worldthat holds the mirror.
Light brightens anyspace, but that’s illusion. Thereare still bills to pay.
We wait for someoneto appear, but the heart hasfour clouded windows.
Every storm kills something,but keep smiling: nothingdistracts like a rainbow.
Dance and the heart willthaw; thaw and the heart will dance.But mind the music.
The empty street andthe crowded street are the same:strangers remain strange.
Language is the maskconcealing our unevenheartbeats from the world.
In pure wildernessthe only clear path is theone right behind you.
So in the smallestof rooms, which is to say theheart, we rest at last. [End Page 27]
Clint McCown has published four collections of poems and four novels, the most recent of which, Haints, received the Midwest Book Award. He is the only two-time winner of the American Fiction Prize. A former screenwriter for Warner Bros. and Creative Consultant for HBO television, he directs the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University and teaches in the low-res MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
