My father plucked me

From my fields and boyhood explorations,

When I’d come of age,

And set me in his shop on the family trade.

For hours, he worked me

Until the smell of pulp and ink

Ground their way into my skin,

And by the glare of the moon,

He would enumerate

The subtle joys and virtues of the press.

After my father died and I took over his shop,

Huge printing companies grew up in the city,

All making copies better than I could.

No one much needed a local man after that.

My fingers were so scarred and my eyes so poor from setting the type

That I took to wearing my father’s old gloves and glasses.

It was all I could do to keep up with the price of ink.

When the shop finally closed that winter,

I left Spoon River, worn, tattered, and hollow,

A hard cover with the pages

Eaten from the middle.