Robert Witmer

Tweezers

As if you cared to remove the flea from its tiny circus. The hair from the tip of your nose. The soul from a fertilized egg. The iron ore must be freed from the mountain. The forge stoked. Clear plastic set to the package so nobody buys the wrong kind by mistake. Not everything, I suppose, is where it should be. Some things need be removed. The tweezers from their little pouch in that vanity case you found at the flea market. That enduring though tiny and dim-getting-dimmer memory from the formidable fabrications of life.

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For the past 45 years, Robert Witmer has lived in Tokyo, Japan, where he served as a Professor of English at Sophia University until his retirement in 2022. His poems have appeared in many print and online journals, including Lily Poetry Review, The Mean Street Rag, Bacopa Literary Review, New Verse News, and Parody. A first book of poems, Finding a Way, was published in 2016. A second book, Serendipity, a collection of prose poetry pieces and haiku sequences, was published in March 2023. Examples of his work can be found at the AuthorsDen and Poets & Writers websites.

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