Norbert Krapf
To Obscure Men
This is a belated letter
to lonely old men like
the uncle who taught us
how to hunt, the neighbour
who took us on our first
camping trip, or the friend
of our father who organized
the excursion to our first
big-league ball game in
Cincinnati or St Louis.
This is an inadequate,
belated letter to old men
everywhere who after we
grew up, moved away from
the town, and never wrote
back, sustained themselves
for a few years on bitter-
sweet memories of labouring
in factories, sweating on
county road gangs, or working
the earth on hand-me-down
farms... A long overdue,
unsuccessful letter to
unhappy old men who withered
away in parlours, hanged
themselves from two-by-four
rafters in garages, or shot
themselves in smokehouses
with the twelve guages
they’d hunted with for fifty-
five years... An impossibly
late but nevertheless contrite
letter from those of us
who have just grown old
enough to begin to remember.
Page(s) 34-35
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- Second Aeon
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