went to Togo to study drum makers. He learned their language, a tongue that had the rhythm of waves dancing to the moon’s call. He became a decent drummer. He learned how to cure goat hides to make drum heads that sang when you beat them. He was gone a long time. When he returned, his colleagues asked him, “Why do they practice matrilocality?” “What are the economic advantages of specializing in drum making?” At first, Jack couldn’t answer in a language they understood. “Gone native,” the other anthropologists whispered to each other at cocktail parties while Jack took notes on their various handshakes and how much gin they consumed before they could sing, and even then not well.

crescent moon
so little
to say

Bob Lucky

is a regular contributor to haiku and tanka journals in the US, Europe, and Australia, and his work has been widely anthologized. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous international journals, including Flash, Rattle, Modern Haiku, KYSO Flash, The Prose-Poem Project, The Boston Literary Magazine, Haibun Today, and Contemporary Haibun Online (where he edits content).

His chapbook of haibun, tanka prose, and prose poems, entitled Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), was an honorable mention in the Touchstone Book Awards. In February 2018, his haibun story Gratitude (nominated by KYSO Flash) was named Runner-Up for Vestal Review’s VERA Award.

Lucky lives and works in Saudi Arabia.