Protégée

Angel's Flight, Vol. 5.2 (1980)

Frances Wolf

Sir Professor, Sir Doktor,
Something big has stopped, it's intolerable.
I wish it were a hollow hourglass.

I could grasp it, reverse it,
Turn it upside down,
Set its measure running again.

Because when this something
Stops, I am a page torn out,
A disappearance.

And when it begins again
I'm rewritten.
I'm a sheaf of furious notes.

Dear Mentor,
Take heart,
I am learning.

Dear Mentor, it's here,
You are teaching.
I am the proof, the flattery,

And you a genre, like stars.
When I leave, when I leave,
It will be for somewhere good

And far from the voice
Of tutelage, the touch.  Scars
On my papery skin, I know.  You know

Too, the irony hounds me.
My mind is rounding over and over
Our flat windy world,

Seeing myself at slightly past
Forty, talking
At rows of shifting knees

And one open, naive
Face, the bloom
Of gullibility, I'll pluck it.

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