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Crystalline

We’ve teamed up to bubble wrap, pieces pop 
beneath our shoes, we stretch, cut, and tape.

All this punctuates silence. Discontent sometimes 
gets snarled in a web, loses its voice. Like spiders

spinning dual-purpose homes and traps, our lives
reduced to web repairs, adjustments for a leaf

there, a hole leaking here. It’ll be lonely crawling 
ahead, the riddle of which road to take in dim light.

No internal gyroscope of a migrating bird, nor magnetic 
field to navigate by. Only the sound of pops and tape. 

shattered goblet
the way a teardrop  
gets swept up

About the Author

Richard Matta

Richard L. Matta grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley, attended university, practiced forensic science, and now lives in San Diego. Some of his haiku, tanka and haibun are in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Akitsu Quarterly, Bottle Rockets and Presence. His long-form poetry is found in various journals, including Gyroscope, Dewdrop, Ancients Path and Healing Muse.


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