Postcard from Kyoto
Eight umbrellas hang upside down
side by side in a stall outside a tea house.
The first seven, from left to right, have bamboo
handles and black nylon canopies. The eighth
is blue silk with a fine curved handle
of ivory and stands out like a damsel fish
among cod. Who left it behind and why?
Where did she go without her blue umbrella
down the black streets slick with rain?
Richard Hedderman says, “I am a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet whose latest book of poems is Choosing a Stone (Finishing Line Press.) My work has appeared in dozens of literary journals in the U.S. and abroad. I’ve served as a guest poet at the Library of Congress, performed my writing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and am formerly Writer-in-Residence at the Milwaukee Public Museum. I live in Milwaukee where I teach creative writing at Mount Mary University.”