Little Hopeful Machine

President Abraham Lincoln lay–
like the few spliced
together horse-hair ends

of brushstrokes done by pen,
on the yellow scratchpad
of a Mr. Vincent Van Gogh–

beside not the sublime sil-
houette of his manic-
depressive wife,

but the few pubescent hairs
running up an enlisted boy’s
(yes) lamb chops.

Lamb chops, for which one hears the occasional lamb’s ‘chomp-

chomp.’