we pulled the strollers off the busy street to a small Japanese food stand with no lines and the kindest workers and I ordered a dish of cold noodles with Sriracha and some sliced beef sandwiches and then my wife and I stood to the side on a hidden empty path away from the crowds and the animals and enjoyed the good food to the sounds of our children playing together and the wind blowing softly in the trees above us and for a brief moment we made our own magic kingdom

falling leaves the rise of my son’s eyebrows

Ryan Jessup

is a Christian, a husband, a father, a poet, and a downhill skateboarder. His work has appeared in KYSO Flash, Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, 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.