Joan Prefontaine

Laughingstock

You can’t turn back the clock.
But you can wind it up again.
                  —Bonnie Prudden

When I search the house frantically for my hat only to discover it perched on top of my head, my six-year-old grandson couldn’t be more delighted. When I discover my missing sock in the refrigerator next to a jar of pickles, he tells me, admiringly, that I am “an absolute idiot.” He likes to hear me recount how, before putting on my glasses in the morning, I have, on more than one occasion, spoken to the black plastic wastebasket in the corner of the bathroom, convinced it was our tortoiseshell cat. “And what did the wastebasket say back to you?” he shouts, cracking up, thrilled to know that his grandmother is not only off her rocker, but cuckoo, loopy, loony, and bananas too.

delayed bedtime
one more chapter
of Captain Underpants

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About the Author

Joan Prefontaine has been writing haiku and haibun since 2012, after she moved to the mountains of central Arizona, where the wide-open spaces of the Southwest encouraged her to use fewer words and more reflective pauses. Her haibun have won several awards, including a Cottage Prize in Japan’s 2020 Genjuan International Haibun Contest.