Peter Henry Lepus is not fond of “Prefaces”; he says that though they are the “face” you
see before the “face” of the other writing, he feels they should more properly be called
placed-first tail notes, as they are done after the longer writing.
Peter Henry has one paw resting
on a fat volume of Derrida;
he can’t lift it but someone kind
has copied one whole paragraph out
in BIG letters
& pinned it to a broad-trunked tree.
The trunk is covered by the writing
which is on white paper and easy to read.
What it signifies he had no idea
but he likes to run questioningly to & fro
& nibble on a sentence’s
“possible meanings”.
Some of it will sink in
in time he thinks . . .
He is older, now, than he was
when those poems were written.
It is later now than it was then, whenever then was.

Between one line & another there is white


space, between one live trunk & another,
there is an opening . . .