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J Hahn Doleman

Slivers

I spent a fair amount of my childhood in my father’s workshop learning the ways of wood, so when I landed my first construction job right out of high school I felt more than ready, maybe even a little bit cocky. My first day on the job, while balancing on a rickety old scaffold, I reached out to steady myself against a piece of splintered siding and drove an inch-long needle of cedar so deep into my palm I had to dig it out with a utility knife. Bandaged and painful, my hand couldn’t swing a hammer for a week and I was forced to take comp time. “Rookie move,” is all the foreman had to say. 

pine shavings
the curl of my lower lip
when you yell

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J Hahn Doleman is a hospital-based speech pathologist who will make any excuse to spend time outdoors, especially for ill-advised marathon bicycle rides or off-trail backpacking trips in the Sierras with insufficient gear and provisions. Jeff began writing haibun in 2018 and serves as a contest coordinator for the Haiku Poets of Northern California.