Wasting Haibun

To gape the hole bigger the pedestrians must be forced off their sidewalk onto the pimpled road.
Almost winter the dry scrape and cold crumble of the dirt cannot resist cannot wait insist the
machines. Clawed and aching they disembowel. Arthritic fistgrip and release. Wailing and
gravelling the excavators press their open faces to the ground hunchedback and bent at the knee.
Genuflecting metal takes the earth body and blood into its mouth and chokes it out. The fence
hurries away trembling and crosses itself. The streetlights sentinel stand backs to it but will their
eyes to solder shut. Razed up rubblewise there is no way around.                     I must cross the street.

The deer are hungry;
prions carceral and crazed,
they gralloch themselves.

Samantha Kirschman is a writer currently living in Pittsburgh. Previously published in Gordon Square Review and Forbes & Fifth.

Published July 15 2025