Wednesday, August 27, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Body Tanka by Keitha Keyes

English Original

no use now
for see-through gowns
or lacy undies --
the floor mirror tells 
the story of my body

Moonbathing, 25, 2021

Keitha Keyes 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

現在穿透視裝
或是蕾絲內衣
已經沒用了 --
一面落地鏡訴說
我身體的故事

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

现在穿透视装
或是蕾丝内衣
已经没用了 --
一面落地镜诉说
我身体的故事


Bio Sketch

Keitha Keyes lives in Sydney, surrounded by antique irons and ship models. She enjoys writing  tanka, haiku, senryu, cherita and related genres. Her work is published in many journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas.

1 comment:

  1. Ls 4&5 of Keitha's tanka about female body "valuation" and relationship "satisfaction" don't tell anything explicitly about the speaker's/ a female body, but Ls 1-3, combined with the "Gendered Knowledge" of the female body, show everything the reader needs to know.

    What's left unsaid in the tanka is stated implicitly by a sociocultural script about how important a woman's figure is to a man.

    And the tanka below could be read as its sequl:

    a string quartet
    pulls up so slowly
    a heaviness
    tied deep in a female body
    feelings buried by the years

    ATPO Special Feature: Chiaroscuro, 2012

    Jane Reichhold

    ReplyDelete