five tanka
bomb threat
at the Wal-mart—
customers and associates
shivering under
the autumn sky
kisses
like bruises
and the
dark shadow
of memory
waking at
my accustomed hour,
a dream of rain
still damp on the bark
of autumn trees
having lost
her keys,
my daughter
comes tapping
at my morning window
I could
give you the stars
in winter,
if only you would
step outside
M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet. He is the editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, and the author of Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (Recommend Reading by the Chesapeake Bay Project). He is the editor of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka and compiler of the Bibliography of English-Language Tanka. He has published over 1500 tanka poems. He also published a gay Asian-themed fantasy novel, Fire Dragon.