Pencil People

I’ve noticed that the larger part of Pencil

People I have done in black on white

appear remarkably at ease: as if they use

their monochromatic sketchy ambiguities

for fun – far more to tease than please.

I’m rarely sure what any Pencil Person’s

looking at, though I remain quite certain

that it sees. They’re each a strangely

shadowed sort of being – favoring rash

scratches, blotches, traces whose faux pas

they sometimes think are graces – but

they don’t care if any graces get effaced.

The sourceless white around their floaty

charcoal threads and tangles by default

may seem like daylight, but Pencil People

are in fact determined denizens of night –

perversely though, not the night we know:

theirs has the glow of being blank, which they

appear to thank for its suggestion of the roll

of dice that will eventually spell their fate:

to be erased. Infinite Nonbeing is where

they’ve placed Paradise. And in one

blunt regard they’ve outraced us by far.

It’s said that life is carbon-based –

but not as much as Pencil People are.

.