Family Affair: A Haibun

by

John J. Dunphy

A man recently committed suicide in my hometown by using a steel cable to hang himself from a railroad bridge that spans a creek. Rescue workers struggled to remove his corpse without compromising the man’s dignity.

This operation drew a large crowd. Although police kept spectators a prescribed distance from the site, a few devised means of getting a better look.

the hanged man —

child watches from atop

his father’s shoulders

(published years ago in Raw Nervz Haiku VIII:2)

• ****
• John J. Dunphy’s poetry works include Old Soldiers Fading Away, Zen Koanhead, Touching Each Tree, Stellar Possibilities and Dark Nebulae. His prose works include Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials: The Investigative Work of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, 1945–1947, From Christmas to Twelfth Night in Southern Illinois, and Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois.