The young lad bellies down, ink in hand. He writes of pregnancy, a father’s knotting mistakes, and trees bent to make way for man-made things. He writes of pulling on the pocket of a peaked lapel. And muddling wool with tobacco-stained fingertips. He writes of the pain in growing— still longing for a cold hard teat. He knows the difference between a child and a gentleman. The difference between a mother and a girl. The same fingers that drag a pen from left to right on thin blue lines of yellow paper. Are the same fingers that pluck the confidence from his naive young wife. The same fingers that point at women to deflect and deny.
The Word Mill 