Bad Jack lays his weather-beaten poncho on the ground, smooths it out with his rough, sun-browned desperado hands, and sits cross-legged on one corner, depositing rocks on the other three to keep the poncho in place, in case one of the occasional gusty winds comes down from the pine-encrusted slopes of the Sierra de Guadalupe. He glances up at El Capitan through squinty eyes, one hand pressed against his brow to shield them from the brilliant red-orange glow of the setting sun, the other reaching into his pocket for a box of matches. He finds a stogey in his satchel, strikes a match, and lights up.

that scratching itch 
again he laments 
now to find himself 
a waterhole for a hated bath 
a waste of easy time, he says

After a few leisurely and deep drags, which Bad Jack exhales through his nostrils, he snips off the hot ashes with his calloused brown fingers and puts the two-inch stub back into his satchel, removing at the same time a ratty old deck of playing cards—a trusted companion, along with his stolen horse, Eduardo, for a solitary bandito always on the run, such as Bad Jack Muldoon.

coffee brews 
in a banged-up tin can 
over the campfire—
you can’t win at solitaire 
with a 51-card deck 

in an instant 
his keen hand detected 
one missing card 
in his first spread he saw 
it was the Queen of Spades 

it stood for 
strength and clever dealing 
to keep him sharp, he was told 
to remember the map 
and where he hid the stolen gold 

the scent of pine 
and freshly laid manure 
wafts gently 
past Bad Jack’s aquiline beak 
Eduardo snorts and flicks his tail 

—From Shadows of the Saguaro: The Wiles of Cactus Annie May and Bad Jack Muldoon, a series of responsive tanka tales by Lester and Miko. For three additional tales from the series, see Tanka Forms in Issue 20 of MacQ.

Michael H. Lester

is a CPA, attorney, and poet who lives in Los Angeles, California. His writing has been widely published in prestigious poetry journals, has been translated into several languages, and has won numerous awards worldwide. Michael’s recent publications include two illustrated children’s books, Cassandra and the Strange Tale of the Blue-Footed Boobies and Johnny and Frankie’s Summer Sleepover, as well as a book of poetry, Notes from a Commode: Volume I. A fourth book, The Squeeping Catterwhip, is now available on Amazon.

Vicki Miko

is a retired television producer. She is a widely published poet in the haiku and tanka communities. Her illustrations have been featured in Billboard Magazine and displayed on Nagle Outdoor billboards. She was nominated for the McKnight Foundation Art Award for creating gardening workbooks for the JD Rivers’ Children’s Garden in Minneapolis. She lives in Southern California with her humoring husband.

Author’s website: http://www.vickimiko.com/