Friday, November 21, 2008

Love on a Patch of Ice

A brief chuckle under his breath
As she slips on the ice he
So deftly avoided
With a move like Fred Astaire
In jeans and parka and gloves
Puffy arm plucks her
From assured catastrophe.

"Thank you!"
Soft down in clenched fists
"You saved my ass."
He looks her in the eyes
Without smiling
"It was an ass worth saving."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's great! Has a very classic feel to it but with a modern punch. In front-page design for newspapers, one of the things they always say is good to have is a "surprise." I'd say your last few lines qualify as just that. Good job!

Phil said...

I love Haiku and one of the lessons I learned about writing them is that the first two lines set a mood and the last line delivers a punch of some sort, often from what seems like left field. But the trick is to make it tie back to the first lines somehow. That's what I was going for here.