Sean Thomas Dougherty
- portlandbove
- Jul 4
- 1 min read
GS with “Tanka” by Shizuka Omori, Translation by Yuki Tanaka
Why return to the sky if not for the birds
Composing their own choreography that
Criss crosses like skates on ice. I couldn’t
Figure eight on the pond. When I first step
Into the clouds I won’t be back
Like the Buddhist monk who saw the
Deer in his mind & transformed the second
He died into a fawn. No, to be a person
Who lived once is enough: to be the pronoun
I & know You Dear Luck if lacerated
By this life is absence like a river by
Its meaning indecipherable like lines the
Skaters make on ice, or cranes against the sunset—
Sean Thomas Dougherty's most recent book is Death Prefers the Minor Keys from BOA Editions. He works as a caregiver and Medtech in Erie, PA.