Shorter Days

This haiku sequence first appeared in Frogpond, the journal of the Haiku Society America, and was then selected for Telling the Bees, the Red Moon anthology of the finest English-language haiku published around the world in 2024.

more patch than road
Mom finally lets me
zip up her coat

untied shoelaces at her wit’s end

she requests
the thing with wheels
departing geese

her hearing aid lost afternoon

tangled DNA
all the diapers
she changed for me

Mom asks whether
she’s had dinner
lavender sunset

steeping tea
my shouted
small talk

how she lights up
when I make her laugh
wildflower honey

rice paper lamp
the water glass shaking
in her hand

she says she’s still
the same person inside
stars between clouds

holding her hand the length of a lifeline

night light glow
I sing her the lullaby
she once taught me

— Annette Makino, published in Frogpond, 47:3, Autumn 2024; and Telling the Bees: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2024, edited by Jim Kacian and the Red Moon Editorial Staff, Red Moon Press, 2025

At the Exit

solstice morning
our old dog
unable to rise

purple beach pea
his warm weight
in my arms

the last thing
we can do for him . . .
the vet’s gentle voice

summer twilight
a final treat
from my palm

at the exit
donating
his leash

hot tears all day the empty dog bed

RIP Misha, 2006 or 2007 - 2023. See also In Memory of Misha.

a lock of his fur
every verb tense
wrong

his collar
still hanging by the door
a single white cloud

a small clay dog
joins the ancestor shrine
forest hush

the beach without him
ocean merging
into sky

wagging tail
he comes running back
in my dreams

— Annette Makino, published in Modern Haiku, 55:3, Autumn 2024