Jenny Ward Angyal
Karma
Limping through the grocery store somewhere between beans and butter, I stifle a gasp of pain and stop short in the middle of an intersection. I’m blocking traffic and people look askance at me from behind their masks. But in the bony arch of my left foot, no cartilage cushions the rasp and grind of certain worn-out joints.
cuneiform bones— their ghostly images reveal an ancient message inscrutable as pain
‘No telling,’ the doctor had said, in response to my pointless ‘why’ query. ‘Maybe it’s from an old injury.’
brushing the dust of fifty years from the crystal ball of memory . . . the sweet scent of hay
Lead rope in hand, I am standing in the bed of a livestock truck. I coax and cluck and offer carrots, but the chestnut mare called Butterfly doesn’t trust the rickety wooden ramp. Instead, she makes a prodigious leap three feet straight up into the back of the truck. . . landing squarely on my foot.
no such thing as a separate self— one gentle tug and a jeweled net opens under the echoing stars
About the Author
Jenny Ward Angyal’s tanka have appeared widely in journals and in her collection, moonlight on water (2016). She is tanka editor of Under the Basho.
A masterful piece – seamlessly meshing the present with the past. I love the way the second tanka links to the prose that comes after. So many phrases appeal to me – ‘somewhere between beans and butter’ – the description of the injury’s ‘rasp and grind’. Both the tanka shift and link, making for a very satisfying read.
Thank you
Thanks very much for your kind comments, Liz!
Lovely piece
“Karma” is wonderfully engaging with the seamless meshing of the present to the past as Liz comments on. Thank you, Jenny.