Drawing Class

The teacher shared a print 

of the primitive wall paintings 

from the Cave of Lascaux 

and I snapped my pencil in half,

packed up my supplies, and

slipped out the back door.

Truth be told, my art had 

all the energy of a headstone

while I could see 

that the cave dweller, 

twenty thousand years past,

with two strokes had captured

the bull's horns with 

the reverence every person should

accord to those whose death

sustains them.

I'd never thought to address 

the prime cuts at 

the Costco meat counter

with such gratitude,  

so I had no hunt to bring 

to my sharpened pencil.

I tried to fault the tool, while 

I doubted that long-ago artist 

ever once blamed the whittling 

of his spear as he painted 

these elegies.

Perhaps my pencil is 

so empty of exaltations

it can draw nothing but air.