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