zumpoems

Based on this recent news event: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/25/g-s1-103683/powerball-player-arkansas-won-jackpot

The human touch

On Christmas Eve, many just like me
stopped at the station where I get my gas
and bought slips of paper
as thin as my patience
waiting its reward.

A mile or so away in Cabot
I closed my own store,
shut down the register,
reminded by the radio of
the size of the jackpot
while I drove home
in my rusty 2003 Tacoma.

Maddie set out some sandwiches—
our light Christmas Eve meal;
two months of watching costs
earned tomorrow’s fortune of presents
paired with roasted prime rib.

That morning came, and our two children
visited us in bed to tug at us—
too small to pull us out
and not old enough to realize they hadn’t.

A delight of flung wrapping paper and
unchecked squeals energized our living room
as, with some guilt, I looked at my phone
to glimpse the weekly Powerball snub.

No ordinary loss:
promised paradise, this time,
came from the station where I staked my three bucks.

But this small defeat brought reassurance:
in a world of algorithms,
predictive apps, and AI advisers
that steal away jobs and raise energy prices
there was still one thing technology couldn’t do:
choose the right numbers.