Bart Wilcox
Daddy Earns a Terminal Degree
2025,Oil on canvas, 24″ x 36″

I was lost in a book
somewhere
literarily
deconstructed
and spread over
the modernists.
Perforce is a word
that contains me,
as rare now as
love and ivory.
Carved bookends compress
two thousand years
of culture
from which I have
picked a grape.
Come here,
baby,
see this?
Now, go on.
I have to finish.