middle of the night and I wake with my mouth as dry as a winter leaf but I cannot drink a drop of anything because of a scan that I must endure in a few hours that now feels more like a few days away but I have been down this road before and even though this time it seems like stray dogs are chasing me I ignore them along with the dark night surrounding me and focus instead on the strands of moonlight lacing my wife’s shoulder beside me guiding me away from my consciousness and further back into the peacefulness of sleep

changing light the window frame becomes a cross

Ryan Jessup

is a Christian, a husband, a father, a poet, and a downhill skateboarder. His work has appeared in Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, KYSO Flash, Lynx, Notes from the Gean, Relief Journal, and others. His haibun have twice been included in the annual print anthology of Contemporary Haibun Online. They also appear in the KYSO Flash Anthology of Haibun and Tanka Forms 2015 and State of the Art: KYSO Flash Anthology 2016, and are forthcoming in the Snapshot Press eChapbook Awards print anthology of the best haibun from the first four years of the awards. He lives with his wife and kids in the foothills of North Carolina.

Please visit Ryan Jessup’s listing at Poets & Writers for more information.