Smoother Brains Are Better

Dangerously, almost daringly,
the little man sat behind the desk,
his back to the sagging shelves.

They were laden with the plaques and
awards he'd won, the gifts of great
societies his peers had never heard of.

He'd scoffed, "I'm too elite for them,"
his ego quite enormous; for he had, of course,
been recognized by many groups as brilliant.

He'd been dashing for decades, made several
inane discoveries, proclaimed his own
hypotheses and argued them to theories.

Now in search of lasting greatness,
he'd devised his denouement, declaring,
"Smoother brains are better."

He upended cerebral communities,
his claims of correlations so connecting
indications of intelligence with texture.

He debated on and on, on panels, boards,
and one-on-one until he'd won, when every peer
and great society agreed that he was right.

And when he finally hit the table in the morgue,
the county coroner, a fan, removed his brain,
observed the pan, and nearly dropped it.

"It's as bumpy as can be!" he said, on seeing
dents and dimples, pits and squiggles in the brain
of he whose legacy was riding on this surface.

Then one skeptical pathologist who'd doubted all along
careened his eyes and wryly muttered, "Big surprise,"
and, by coincidence, a thousand others changed their minds that day.