Swapping Shells

by Michael Dylan Welch, Billie Dee, and Tanya McDonald

Third-place winner in the 2010 Haiku Poets of Northern California rengay contest. First published in Mariposa #24, Spring/Summer 2011, page 35. Written 18 October 2009 at Scenic Beach State Park and at Barbie’s Seabeck Bay Café in Seabeck, Washington, after the Seabeck Haiku Getaway weekend.

shell gathering—

our toes sinking

down to the wet Michael

abandoned camper shell

columbine in the shadows Billie

sea glass—

she caresses

the shell of his ear Tanya

the idle hooker

reading Shelley Michael

by moonlight

a hermit crab

swapping shells Billie

the band shell darkened

he gives my hand a squeeze Tanya