O:JA&L Mixed Forms: Haibun
Isaura Lira Greene
TARDIGRADES
They look like bears or piglets, hence their name. Features: one snout, eight grappling feet, plump and faces that are squished like pugs and just as adorable. Smaller than a millimeter, segmented like the hookah-smoking caterpillar, these animals are the most indestructible species known to humankind. They can be frozen, then unfrozen, and then kept in extreme heat. They can live for up to 10 million years on barely anything. Could perhaps one day invade the Cosmos, alongside jellyfish, they will be the living memories of the last slivers of planet earth, after the sun’s expansion.
I’ve always been in love with the feeling of mud between my toes. Gooey, and alive with millions of microbes. How funny, I don’t think of them as germs infectious and probing the crannies in my skin. It’s just me there alone, senses erupting like fireworks inside my head at the tickle of drying earth. And as I touch dewy moss growing on tree bark, a welcomed shiver overcomes me. A bit like the frisson phenomenon, while listening to passionate harmonies or something tear-jerkingly sad. The strings of a violin or a cello and the hair on my arms vibrate as one.
After we die, tick,
memories in our bones lax
sing for the chosen.
About the writer:
Isaura Lira Greene is a creative writer with the experience of a BFA. Her first poem was published at age fourteen in NewMoon Girls magazine. The writing of Isaura Lira Greene continues to investigate the human spirit in relation to the living earth and the echoes of generational courage.
Image: Ambulat-Ut-Ursus, Imperator Perpetuus Universi (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2025. Public domain via Midjourney AI.
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O:JA&L’S BUTTONHOOK PRESS MASTERS SERIES
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The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Brian Clements on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Mark Budman on Flash Discourse
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With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Roberta Allen on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Peter Conners on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Maxine Chernoff on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Pedro Ponce on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Tom Hazuka on Flash Fiction
With an interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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