Matthew Caretti
Babel
I bend low to stroke the tired dog.
evening star whisper of the fire
Look up to watch the swift satellite snapping secrets.
moonrise wordless without LiPo’s wine
Or releasing indelicate text messages from a catfishing lover.
through the night trill of cane toads
The dog shows me her belly, still salted from our swim in the warm sea.
whale song some future self sighing
About the Author
Matthew Caretti’s books include Harvesting Stones (2017, Snapshot Press eChapbook Award winner, haibun) and three books with Red Moon Press: Africa, Buddha (2022, haibun), Ukulele Drift (2023, haiku), and Slow Boat to Samoa (2025, haibun). His haibun “Deep Water Port” earned a 2023 Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun. He lives and teaches high school English in Pago Pago, American Samoa.
Truly lovely. The contrast and quick switching between the four lines of single-sentence prose and the four monoku is wonderful. The piece is very painterly, with eight strokes creating a world both local and universal, infused with the past (LiPo), present and “future”. A real gem. Thank you.
Heartfelt thanks, Bill, for your kind words!