Ence’s Reviews > The Clerk's Tale: Poems – An Exquisitely Restrained Literary Debut Shot Through with Longing > Status Update

The clerk’s tale. Obscenely perfect as a poem.
“Most of his life is over.
Often he refers to himself as “an old faggot.”
He does this bemusedly, yet timidly.
I know why he does this.
He does this because his acceptance is finally complete —
and complete acceptance is always
bittersweet. Our hours are long. Our backs bent.
//
A naked body, without pretense, is of no use.
It grows late.”