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781 Prentice Baker “The Delusion” A native of Leitchfield, in Grayson County, Prentice Baker was an office worker at the L&N Railroad by day and a poet by night. Although he has lived in the city most of his life, his poems recall his boyhood and youth in rural Kentucky. Down Cellar, a collection of his poetry, was published in 1973. This poem is a festival of country living and loneliness. h You are just in time for supper. You look tired; There is pollen dust on your shoes. Wave the moths from the screen; come in; sit. Join me at corncakes and buttermilk, Fried ham and gravy and shelly beans. Then I will look into your clear eyes, Reading the well-earned comfort of poor years Lived richly. How genuine is your laughter! We’ll light a kerosene lamp for novelty. A while, perhaps, you will honor me by pretending I could be, or I might be or have been The man to fill whatever lack you’ve found, And I, delude myself that loneliness Would slip away into our night-ringed fields Could you remain; but this it never would. There are fireflies over the tiger-lilies, Over the clematis purpling the west fence. It has been pleasant, your visiting with me, And I will walk the gravel road with you, Counting the dim white heads of Queen Anne’s Lace Blown in the drafty dusk among the weedstalks Scornful of numbering, all the way to your house. It may be that the dusk scorns loneliness And the one goodnight kiss of our pretense. ...

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