The World Is in Pencil

—not pen. It’s got

that same silken
dust about it, doesn’t it,

that same sense of
having been roughed

onto paper even  
as it was planned.

It had to be a labor
of love. It must’ve

taken its author some
time, some shove.

I’ll bet it felt good
in the hand—the o

of the ocean, and
the and and the and

of the land.

Source: Poetry (November 2011)