The editors said tattoo but there were no bells, or clatter calls.
They opened their hands
and let out the skins’ flat oblivion;
a memory of beach, suckling with
Mother. The editors did not trust the people.
They had ads to place and white noise to sell.
They pretended to call the people awake,
but they gave them
Pabulum and called it poetry. They gave them flags
to sew, inked with their own crests.
The editors were like WalMart to the Chinese,
like the duchess to her lace maker. The editors did not care
about blindness, neither their own
nor anyone else’s.

But an artist can work in the mud,
in the gulp of an octopus’ black cloud
the artist can take the
fat sow and make the silk purse of her.
Even the fat sow will acknowledge
how fine her ear is, was, now, always will be.