Out of Sync

by Sidney Bending, Margaret Rutley, and Michael Dylan Welch

Honourable mention in the Haiku Poets of Northern California’s 2022 rengay contest. Publication forthcoming in Mariposa in the fall of 2023. Originally written from July to September 2020, by email.

quiet on set

the director hollers

action Sidney

for the stuntman

extra padding Margaret

a jet fighter crosses

the clear blue sky . . .

old-time western Michael

barroom brawl

a break-away stool . . . doesn’t Sidney

aging starlet

lip-syncing

out of sync Margaret

at Grauman’s Chinese theatre

a mongrel lifts its leg Michael