Do you remember the time we met? I had seen you in the window, each time I walked by. And then, one night, I knocked. Asked your mother to speak to her daughter. “Which one?” she asked. “The one in the window,” I replied.
You stared for a long time but agreed to a walk—anything but homework, you said. The coins jingled in my pocket, block after block. But then we turned a corner, and you caught the scent.
We ate the haddock straight from the paper, and I watched longingly as you licked your fingers clean. Years later, I still wonder what happened. How I let you go. Without a fight.
childhood chippy
finding you again
in the births, marriages, and deaths
is the author of Tick-Tock, a haibun collection that received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards, and Eira, a collection of haiku that received a 2023 Touchstone Award; both books are from Snapshot Press. Lew is also the co-author, with Roberta Beary and Rich Youmans, of Haibun: A Writer’s Guide (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023). He is the haibun co-editor of Frogpond and holds an honorary doctorate from Bristol University. Born and raised in Wales, he now lives in Chicago with his wife, Roxanne Decyk. His other passions are fly fishing and gin martinis.
