Read me the paper Uncle
Loud enough to hear in the kitchen
Touch it for me, turn those pages
Aunties and I are cooking the dinner
hands must be kept clean.

But in your place by the fire
the beige recliner squeaks
on the back-beat of your rocking,
toes slide in and out of slippers
leather stretched out and soft
as a first basemen’s glove

Calloused hands turn each inky page
of the Sunday review
headlines shout at us
while we chop onions

Man Reading a Newspaper by Stephen Gillett