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| Issue 34: | Sept. 2026 |
| Micro-Cheribun: | 49 words |
By Billie Dee
Kibble
Our old gelding waits by the paddock gate, his honey-colored coat fading to dun. The last time I ran my hand along his ribs, I felt only hollows.
too old to ride the rendering truck arrives at dawn a few weeks later the dogs don’t notice the difference
—Long-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #4
Billie Dee
is the former Poet Laureate of the U.S. National Library Service. A retired health care worker, she earned her doctorate at UC Irvine. Although she writes in a variety of styles, her special interests include haiku, tanka, and related forms, as well as “mainstream” lyric poetry. Her work has won numerous poetry contests, and is published online and off. Billie lives in the Chihuahuan Desert with her family and a betta fish named Ramon.
Author’s blog: Billie Dee’s Kiku makura
More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond
⚡ Bittersweet (tanka prose) and Pornography (haibun) by Billie Dee in Drifting Sands Haibun (Issue 36, June 2026), pages 36 and 65
⚡ Two Favorite Haibun: The Existential Shrug, essay by Dee in contemporary haibun online 21.3 (December 2025)
⚡ Charred, tanka prose by Dee in haikuKATHA (Issue 48, October 2025), page 36
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