arm and legs

                  “I would give an arm
          and a leg," she said, and then
               one day they were gone.

                       Liz McFadzean

One of the characteristics of traditional haiku is the 17 syllable form…five in the first line, then seven and five.  The essence of haiku is “cutting”, the juxtaposition of two images or ideas with a “cutting word”, a sort of verbal punctuation mark between them. 

Last September, when I saw the pieces of this small doll in the street, I took a photo with no real idea of what I would do with it.  But here I am taking the idea of “cutting” quite literally, and offering the juxtaposition of a careless, idiomatic expression with what the real act of giving an arm and a leg might look like. 

Sometimes the shortest poem takes the longest time to percolate.