The tone of a narrative

I began as a forger.

With ashes from my mother’s cigarettes, turmeric tea, and ground coffee beans,

I made bister.

Like a lily pad perched in soot,

A single leaf of Strathmore 400 series “alabaster” suspended briefly above my mother’s kitchen pan.

Struggling, it gave way to transmission and became a polychromatic buff.

I had reproduced the process of foxing.

Calligraphy would represent my name, and the year 1657, across my pristine relic.

Years later, I became an antiquarian.

Within manila boxes, Munsell yellowed packets, and forest green file folders,

I read the same year 1657 amongst the splotches of merlot and rust caused by ferric oxide.

As if just pulled from my mother’s kitchen pan,

Though I had not written them this time.

Instead, they were drafted in Iron Gall pitch by an unnamed Blacksmith.

I would produce a narrative of the past.

This time, CYMB would present my name, and the year 2021, across a pristine manuscript.