a

They wore out the a

in the letterpress case only after

a few thousand hits under the inked rollers,

pulling the crank, turning

the giant wheel.

Must have been 1820. Thereabouts.

Wanderer, glory-run of letters: thereabouts.

Hunger took its due from

the belly of the a.

So? All kept reading it

as a — those who could read — and anyway,

a bite out of that apple proves

our kind mortal. Rare good paper

into page until most everything about the a

was shot. Practically prayer, humility,

a great foreboding not just

bare-bones frugal.

Simple aaaa from that a — 

First letter loved, to hear it ache and fill

even at half breath.

Look, it’s standard. No one but

a divine being or two makes perfect copy.

Real case in point: my now and again body so

poorly echoed off my mother, my father

out of a broken skull simmering

in a bog, BC probably, long before AD

pretended anything in order. Earlier, our whole

dark hole of a planet copied

unto itself via earthquake, flood, star shard,

raging molten ball in the middle, some

big bang’s idea

of a flawed, proper start.

For a while there, the tiny a

wounded. What it does.

Doing, to herald

every human sentence.