A Very Stupid Haiku Tattoo

The man taking our orders for burgers this afternoon at Provisions on Queen Anne Avenue North had a clipper ship tattooed on his forearm. I asked if he liked clipper ships, hoping for a good story. Yes, he liked clipper ships. He said something else which I couldn’t quite make out. I thought he’d said he’d been a cook on a clipper ship, which would be a pretty good story to go along with a tattoo. But he didn’t say that. I don’t know what he said. The kitchen was loud. The prevalence of tattoos over the last several decades has been phenomenal. I’m not sure what it means. I’ve never had the urge to get a tattoo, but if I did get a tattoo, what would I get? I’m thinking a haiku. It’d put it on my forearm, for easy readability. And I’d want it in Japanese characters. Something by Basho, maybe, or my own composition. “A bottle of antibacterial gel / keeps the wind / from stealing our napkins.” Or maybe a physics equation. The wave equation, or Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. On my forehead. Looking at you – wavily - with strange quizzical symbols. But these thoughts pass lightly through my mind without stirring up much sediment. I don’t need uncertainty pricked into my arm with the deep black ink of an afternoon tattoo. My needs are simple. Food, warmth, affection. Laptops aren’t needs laptops are luxuries. But I wish I could save my old laptop. It was killed by a haiku. It wasn’t. Not really. But that would make a good tattoo. A very interesting tattoo. A haiku murdering a laptop. Like Moby Dick smashing the Pequod to smithereens. But haikus are small, very slight, very subtle phenomena. That would be a dumb haiku. A very stupid haiku tattoo. Riding the forearm of a man imagining life on the open sea while taking a sip of frozen lemonade on a May afternoon.