The Family Fog--By Barbara Tate--United States

The Family Fog

...I'm on the down side of midnight

with a statute of limitations looming,

too little, too late.

Living on the drama inside my head

knowing stars still shine at noon

and wondering why the breeze loses its way,

the day needs a pause, a break before

the curtains close.

Cuddling phantom pain

retreating to a fetal position

remembering what I try to forget,

a solitary vigil lives in the vortex

sucking reality gone

till gone is all I have.

In the corner of yesterday's memories

cherishing the quiet lonesome

with that statute of limitations looming,

I lose myself in the family fog

and ask "why" before I forget to remember.

Barbara Tate is a member of the Gulf Coast Writers Assoc., the Haiku Society of America and the United Haiku & Tanka Society.  She has been published in Santa Fe Literary Review, Storyteller Magazine, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Contemporary Haibun Online, Bear Creek Haiku, the Heron's Nest & Cattails, among others.  She has been included in several anthologies, most recently Robert Epstein's animal rights anthology Every Chicken, Cow, Fish and Frog.  She currently resides in Winchester, TN.