Matthew Caretti

The Tao of Jack

Sleepy-eyed, I put down the book. Dream of his family’s place in the Big Easonburg Woods. Of the old pines and Buddha Creek. Of the unstrung writing and long walks through winter fields waiting for tobacco. I wake to thoughts of a road trip down south. Or hitching the way there. Driven by some longing to find a place to call home.

faraway train
sounding the hollows
in between

I’m soon tramping through houses half run-down, half rebuilt. With wallpaper peeling and floors drooping. With objects left behind. Books moldering on creaking shelves. The springs of old armchairs sprung. And a worn medicine cabinet filled with empty pill bottles.

winter fly
at each window
shades half-drawn

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Matthew Caretti began publishing his poems in 2009, though his fascination with Eastern short-form genres began much earlier. In 2020, he won the Genjuan International Haibun Contest’s Cottage Prize for “Call to Prayer” and received Honorable Mention recognition for “The Car in the Petrol Station Lot” in the Haiku Society of America’s Haibun Contest.