Nostalgia of L. M. Boyd,
crossword puzzles and The Phantom
comic from the childhood gazette;
the boy connected to the world at large,
the movie and book reviews unscrolled:
entropy corralled in columned sheets.
The aroma of newsprint and coffee
as the sun clears the shadows of night,
the experience of unfolding
folio like the golden mean,
the thickness reverses to crinkle
before the flattening snap of order.

Twelve points in a pica,
six picas in an inch:
every inch on the plate, Pulitzer —
all crash and no blossom.

Blueline the bleedthrough of headshot scandal
above the fold, a spotlight headline
from the fourth estate,
correspondents with ironclad sources,
an incendiary nut graph
for the hawkers and newsies
to bump up the circulation.
Stitch and trim the page proof;
pull out the polybags;
the wet morn waits for the bulldogs —
a broadsheet liftout pressed on the day:
may the presses never stop.

*[ WSB ]_.