Lew Watts

Stalker

Breathe slower, deeper. Open the car door, quietly. . .  

I’d been sure it hadn’t sensed me. I was high on the ridge in the shade of a juniper. The wind was blowing east, from the mountain lion to me. It did look up once to sniff the air. But soon, it was on the move again, loping away beyond the bluff. Yet in those seven miles hiking out, no bird song. Only the occasional crack of a branch. 

I want to call you. I want to tell you that today, for the first time since you died, I felt truly alive. You always said the key to life was looking for trouble, then narrowly avoiding it. So come on, Dad, let’s go. No one will know. We’ll be in and out by dark.

getting off
one stop early
same old rush

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About the Author

Lew Watts is the haibun co-editor of Frogpond and the author of Tick-Tock (Snapshot Press, 2019), a haibun collection that received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards. His publications include the novel Marcel Malone and the poetry collection Lessons for Tangueros. He lives in Chicago.