The Turned Down Page

A page, turned down,
at “Intolerance and Forbearance” . . .

was it a struggle to the finish,

a challenge, abandoned?

Was the knowledge intolerable?

The book appears half finished;

it says the base of intolerance

is “stupefying ignorance”.*

It says one who does not know an insult

when he hears one

is an example of this.

Sometimes I think I’m hit

with stupefying ignorance

when

someone tells me

a thing I had no need to know

in some lewd, seductive and salacious way.

It’s clearly

a thing I should not tolerate!

I think about it . . .

with forbearance

but

that page is creased forever.

-Joy S. Barefoot