college town
a pocketful of nickels
for a box of tampons

I plant asparagus and mint. Edible perennials. Some day I will stretch among the strawberries. Or rest under the blueberries and let food fall effortlessly into my mouth.

first to the broccoli gallery opening the dip

I still organize my pantry shelf the way I did when I tended the restaurant salad bar as a teen. Check dates, and rotate stocks so the oldest food is eaten first.

winter withering
asking to borrow
a frozen burrito

Now if I could just revoke my membership to the clean-plate club.

coatless the layers it takes to undress

Kat Lehmann

is a haiku poet, a potter, and a scientist based in Connecticut, USA. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and has been honored in The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Awards (individual poem), the Haiku Society of America Harold G. Henderson Haiku Award, and Japan’s Basho-an Award.

Kat is a Founding Co-Editor of Whiptail: Journal of the Single-Line Poem. She serves as a panelist in The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Books Award (2021-present) and is a judge in the biennial Trailblazer Contest. Her third book, Stumbling Toward Happiness, shares her notes of self-exploration.

Kat’s work, including her experimental “sudo-ku” multi-haiku form, can be read at her website: https://katlehmann.weebly.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Sensory Revelation Tank, haibun by Kat Lehmann which was nominated by MacQ for the Red Moon Anthologies, and selected for publication in Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022).