Brain Was Lollygagging Out
In her mind, the world exists for one reason: To be saved. “Eternal” is an intellectual concept with substance. She attaches it to two words: salvation or damnation. “Irrigation?” – her grandfather once asked after her attempt to “witness for the Lord.” Supposedly, the old guy’s hearing-aid battery conveniently went kaput. There are bets among those who know grandfather’s wry, socialist humor that his subsequent tirades about Eternal Irrigation for All were him mocking fundamentalists beliefs, not his brain short-circuiting in old age. Even if his brain was lollygagging out of control, the wander is wonderfully consistent with his past brilliance. His granddaughter is too young to know the poetic genius whose trickle of DNA courses through her. She wears her snug candy-apple green V-neck with a delicate necklace’s cross falling just right as she proselytizes to the unwary, unshaven, and unwanted.
estate sale
box of fuses paired with
a solar calculator
* Jeffrey Winke is a haiku/haibun/haiga poet and public relations counselor. Recent publications include That Smirking Face, a haiku-art broadside collaboration with Matt Cipov (Milwaukee: Distant Thunder Press, 2008) and PR Idea Book: 50 Proven Tools That Really Work (Denver: Outskirts Press, 2006). www.jeffwinke.com
