Smuggs ’14 Chronicle, Day 8, August 1, 2014, part II

by Frank J. Tassone · 20 June 2019

I watch Mira exit the Pipe Slide at the North Hill Aquatic Center. She flounders in the exit pool, her arms and legs thrashing as her head bobs up and down. My heart skips a beat when a lifeguard stands up, but she recovers. After I slide down, she tells me, “It happens so fast. Too much excitement!”

Mira and Frankie dance through the water spray blue sky

That night, while we’re watching a movie, we hear a thumping above us. It sounds like someone stomping across the floor, or jumping off furniture, in the unit above ours. The disturbance continues even after our movie ends at 11:30! I call the unit in question. A man answers and says they just got in, and they’ll settle down. The noises continue non-stop for another hour. I call Guest Services, who call security.

After midnight awaiting the next bump in the dark

Photo by Lily Banse

Frank J. Tassone

Frank J. Tassone lives in New York City's "back yard" with his wife and son. He fell in love with writing after he wrote his first short story at age 12 and his first poem in high school. He began writing haiku and haibun seriously in the 2000s. His haikai poetry has appeared in Failed Haiku, Cattails, Haibun Today, Contemporary Haibun Online, Contemporary Haibun, The Haiku Foundation and Haiku Society of America member anthologies. He is a contributing poet for the online literary journal Image Curve, and a performance poet with Rockland Poets. When he's not writing, Frank works as a special education high school teacher in the Bronx. When he's not working or writing, he enjoys time with his family, meditation, hiking, practicing tai chi and geeking out to Star Wars, Marvel Cinema and any other Sci-Fi/Fantasy film and TV worth seeing.