Today I saw Abe Lincoln. He was driving an old station wagon out past MacGregor’s Feed & Seed shop on 41st avenue. Well, to come clean, he wasn’t exactly driving. He was a passenger in the back seat. But it felt like he could’ve been driving. Err ... umm ... well, to be honest, I guess that’s not entirely true, because, let’s face facts, ole Abe here was, uh, a marble bust, but—bear with me—he was wearing a seatbelt. So that’s something. Anyways, ole Abe goes by in the station wagon, and all I’m thinking is by Golly, there goes President Abraham Lincoln in a rusty station wagon, and, damn he looks dignified, just leaning back, looking straight ahead, all strapped in with his grey seatbelt. It was a moment, I tell ya. He was looking a bit pale, but it happened just like I said, just out past MacGregor’s Feed & Seed on 41st avenue.

country diner
a tall man in a top hat
asks for a booth

—Inspired by a photograph by Alec Soth, National Gallery of Art:
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.224963.html

Seth Friedman

began writing haiku and haibun in 2023, and has work published (or forthcoming) in Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, hedgerow, Kingfisher Journal, Presence Haiku Journal, seashores, The Heron’s Nest, tsuri-dōrō, and Wales Haiku Journal.