Parchment, Please

Parchment, Please

By Sasha Steensen b. 1974 Sasha Steensen
Near the year
1000
we find
Maximos Planudes
nude
writing to a friend
in Asia Minor
asking for parchment
because the right quality
is not for sale
in his own neighborhood,
presumably Constantinople.
 
In the end,
all he receives
are some asses’ skins,
which do not please
him in the least,
and a note:
 
                                                      Dear Max,
 
                                                      No parchment
                                                      till the summer,
                                                      months after the population
                                                      begins to eat meat.
                                                      Low yield
                                                      should come as no surprise,
                                                      our medieval animals
                                                      being much smaller
                                                      than their modern
                                                      counterparts.
 
                                                      Love,
                                                      A. Minor

Sasha Steensen, “Parchment, Please” from The Method. Copyright © 2008 by Sasha Steensen. Reprinted by permission of Sasha Steensen.

Source: The Method (Fence Books, 2008)

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Poet Sasha Steensen b. 1974

POET’S REGION U.S., Northwestern

Subjects Living, Time & Brevity, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries, History & Politics

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Poet Sasha Steensen grew up in Las Vegas. She earned a BA and an MFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a PhD in poetics at SUNY Buffalo. She is the author of several collections of poetry, including House of Deer (forthcoming, 2013), The Method (2008), and A Magic Book (2004), which won the Alberta DuPont Bonsal Prize, as well as the collaboration Correspondence: For La Paz (2004) with Gordon Hadfield.
 
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SUBJECT Living, Time & Brevity, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries, History & Politics

POET’S REGION U.S., Northwestern

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Originally appeared in Poetry magazine.

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