Shasta Hatter

Conformity

My mother is talking with a friend when I hand her the note from my second-grade teacher. Mom looks annoyed as she unfolds the note.  Her eyes grow wide and she hands it to her friend. “Says here my child may be under Communist influence. What in the world did you say now?” my mom demands. “I just asked if the Indians came here 10,000 years ago, how could Columbus have discovered America in 1492.” I am trying not to cry. Her friend laughs, “She is so smart. Too bad she’s a girl.”  My mother laughs in agreement and folds the note neatly back the way it came.

straight rows
in Mom's garden—
wildflowers in the corn

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About the Author

Shasta Hatter lives in Gresham, Oregon. She began writing haiku in 2016 and, through the Portland Haiku Group, discovered haibun in 2019. She has been published in Wales Haiku Journal, Drifting Sands, and Frogpond, and is a frequent contributor to Failed Haiku. She is currently working on a book of haibun about family, a project supported by her extended family.

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