consider your condition

consider more the price we paid

consider yet a jacket

lest your broken spine betray your age

while edges yellow, sun buffed,

tar coughed & ready rubbed,

I still allow the nicotinic stain

spread across my fingered thumbs

for every page I turn speaks of

the thousand hands that opened

each leaf and countless eyes that scanned

the edifying ants which crawl

across this folio from years

before my sing song croup

developed the atonal rasp

of one with words from broken roots