trout

Take Care

How can I redeem this posh tone against the foreground
of my own small reality? where is the suffering artist,

Curnow's guilt, Baxter's ghost, the best and the worst
of it? how can I risk assertion, expose myself to

my working-class roots without getting nuked? exclusive,
elitist, material, consumptive, but good honest work.

Calfskin for vellum would be soaked in lime, hair scraped
off, scrubbed smooth with pumice, scribes and students

would use goose quills dipped in lamp black; many herds
of sheep and cattle ended up at the book works.

Well I'd rather be burnished than a bit of gristle.
Today the paper coughs-up-yellow at a hint of a glimmer.