I’m waiting on a hard seat in the little clinic behind the Outpatients Department. The others here are silver haired. One very old man droops in a wheelchair. He is thin and has long fingernails. That must be his daughter, who speaks about him to the attendant in a loud voice, as if he isn’t here.
new hearing aid
shocked by the sound
of my footsteps
.
by Barbara Strang
Christchurch, New Zealand
first published in Frogpond, 2006
Love it. The transition between the prose and the haiku is so perfectly judged – silence (or muffled sound) to volume and clarity. And you don't pre-empt the surprise of the haiku anywhere in the prose either.
ReplyDeleteBravo!