Friday, November 26, 2010

haibun || Sheila E. Murphy

Casino

He makes his way into the place where he feels loved. He used to husband his possessions. He has allowed the place to leave him, as he drifts into the thought of chance. The noise, the indecision, the amenities, the having-in-common, and the not-having. Penitence might come alongside wincing. Shadowboxing with the storehouse of procedures. He expertly thinks, and then abandons who he once was. People know his face to be that promising young adventurist. With shoulders squared in dignity. He used to love the smartest woman's fluency, until she dropped. She fell to how his shadow left the road. The cropping of the path, as if a photograph that grayed. A distant sortie watered by inclement daytime. Now his loneliness is whiled away in secret or in public. No one cares, he tells himself, if he remembers who he is. Now his woman drinks her way home. Veering along the hotel hallway, from one wall to the one across. He would relate this tale in jest, as if not to care although it pierced the pride he carried in his heart. If he could seem to brush away chagrin, some individual might find a new home in his heart. They might create a feeling and allow it to become a place. He might revise the only self he knows. From scratch, when anything felt possible, with or against the odds.

Uneven sentiment, decision tree no longer flowering, a walk, a stopping point, the walking longer

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