The pencil they gave me

The pencil they gave me
was covered with paint. I scraped at it.
Artisan, whole-leaf paint chips
dropped off
in spidery clumps.
And now I can see, it is an artisan pencil.
Made by a man in the mountains of Peru.
Separated out from the base of a Peruvian Pencil Tree.
Peru.
It is a savage land.
And there’s my friend, the legendary artisan
with his Peruvian pencil-carving knife, its handle
snapped clean off
from the root of some
mountain vegetable.
Most of the knife is edible, in fact.
Even the blade.
But only if you cook it long and slow.
And who would eat such a thing?
Who would eat the knife cooked tender?
Someone with a pen, no doubt.
Or a typewriter.

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