I sat at the desk considering Whitman
It was a blond desk
Pressed particle board
A few scratches on the surface
Pencils marking and erasing
Marking and erasing
   And the stain
     Coffee?
    Candy?
    Circumstance had created an ugly table
But the tree had to have been majestic
Surrounded by forest
The occasional squirrel
Grey with a bushy tail
Scampering here and yon
Burying acorns for the coming cold
I couldn’t grasp his worth
So much notoriety
And for what…..drivel
Parchment coated in pig ****
Eaten up by the masses
As if it were caviar
  Delicate row packages
Pulled from the soft underbelly of a salmon
Or grunion
The whiting swam as if in a festival of silver backs
Brought home by the seasons to spawn and die
Forever continuing the cycle of Darwin
    The book began to way as heavy as
       My eyelids
       Placing the trash on the table
          Next to the waste-paper basket
I thought to myself….
Better to start again tomorrow…fresh eyes
Better to see what all the fuss
      Is really about –