Charon’s Glimpse of Sunlight
By: M. Shayne Bell
I
At the Landing
I watched Persephone descend
through throngs of dead—
dressed all in white,
as if to keep sunlight with her
in a fabric.
II
One Obol
She would not ride
a half-filled boat.
She brought on dead
who could not pay.
She let the dead crowd near.
III
On Styx
Islands mar that sea;
rocks; but to a pebble—
one dead: flood-swept there,
or overboard and left.
He grabbed her outstretched hand.
She pulled him in.
IV
Docked Hellside
She stepped out first,
waited for the dead.
They trembled behind her,
listened for her word.
Cerberus fanged no soul,
that day.
V
Epilogos
I snored before upstream:
but woke to black wine,
plate of bread, cheese, olives.
I know who left this.
I never take her obol.
M. SHAYNE BELL received a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1991). Bell's haiku have been published in Blithe Spirit: Journal of the British Haiku Society, Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America, Haikuniverse, The Heron's Nest, Mainichi Japan (where haiku of his were selected as among the best English-language haiku: 2015, 2017), Modern Haiku, Open Journal of Arts and Letters (O:JA&L), Shot Glass Journal, star 82 review, Sunstone, Tinywords, and The Wales Haiku Journal. Bell's poetry has also been published in Amazing Stories, Asimov's, Cathexis Northwest Press, Dialogue, The Fibonacci Review, The Ghazal Page, High Shelf, Inscape, Kind Writers Literary Journal (where he received Notable Recognition, 2019-2020 Kind Writers Contest, for his poem: “The Kitten, One Year On”), Once Upon a Midnight (an anthology commemorating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"), Star*line, The Pillar, and Typishly, among others. In 1993, Bell backpacked through Haleakala Volcano on Maui, from the summit to the sea, retracing an expedition Jack London went on in 1911. In 1996, Bell joined an eight-day expedition to the summit of Kilimanjaro. Bell grew up on a ranch outside of Rexburg, Idaho; he and his four cats live in Rexburg.