Bashō’s Smile

     (for GR)

     by James Norton

Years pass, we meet again

between the toilet-paper and the wine;

talk of it—the half-said thing—

as though time were seamless, always now;

then a handshake and we're gone

wheeling down our separate aisles.

Cabbages! Chrysanthemums!

Bashō smiles.

From The Fragrance of Dust: Haiku Stories Poems, Uxbridge, UK: Alba Publishing, 2012, page 92. I believe “GR” is James Norton’s fellow Irish poet Gabriel Rosenstock.