Chris Knodel

A Man of Letters

I started over, and redefined my life.
I created a nineteenth century reading room within my small efficiency flat.
I bought a banker’s lamp and a Chippendale reading chair.
Everything I had served to carry me into a realm of literature.

I rarely thought of her, except in passages laced with violence.

I wore my smoking jacket each evening in my ‘dinette parlor,’
where I treated myself to a Meerschaum and Cognac.
I abandoned the passions of my youth in favor of culture and enlightenment.
I had matured, I told myself, into a “man of letters.”

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