hazy (bad) haiku for the first week of class

fog. it's monday. this

week, i return to work a

monster.  she looks the

same, but she's aiming

her ideologies at

the defenseless! i

should be labeled, the

warning tattooed on my face,

a scarlet m. some

of us wear our scars

like invisible masks, our

faces seemingly

naked while we face

our gauntlets daily, the world

a serrated street.

some walk a somber

path, their rigidity clear

as ice in their eyes,

as necessary

as the air they breathe.  some are

openly fragile,

like leaves left open

when beetles have fed. i want

to hold us all and

keep us whole, but i

am just one woman this week

and of the wrong kind.

it's a kind of self-

induced torture, this speaking

aloud when only

one form of loud is

acceptable.  this morning's

fog is easy to

hit, a target too

convenient to ignore in

the first week of class.

the first thing i'll do,

then, is go for a run, my

body threading the

moisture while the threads

of haze in my brain begin

to stitch the patterns

of the initial

encounters of the coming

week. there is a kind

of weakness that mocks

the legitimacy of

that which makes us frail,

and, therefore, makes us

human.  then there is the kind

that shouts a one-note

song and demands that

others join the chorus.  these

are musical times.

today, my music

will include the cadence of

my middle-aged joints,

at some point joined by

an aching internal voice

that will try to make

sense of a trying

path and of the lyrics key

to sing its looming

navigation.

-- Great Lakes Greta