UND Scholarly Commons (University of North Dakota)

Cast of Fiddler on the Roofhttps://commons.und.edu/performing-arts-photos/1083/thumbnail.jp

Tweten, Rock

Fiddler on the Roof

Cast members of Royal Winnipeg Ballet Nutcrackerhttps://commons.und.edu/performing-arts-photos/1111/thumbnail.jp

Royal Winnipeg Ballet - Nutcracker

Charlie Pride at the Chester Fritz Performing Arts Centerhttps://commons.und.edu/performing-arts-photos/1052/thumbnail.jp

Charlie Pride

Cast of Chicago The Musicalhttps://commons.und.edu/performing-arts-photos/1136/thumbnail.jp

Chicago The Musical

https://commons.und.edu/native-art/1099/thumbnail.jp

Iron Boy, John

Buffalo Hide Drum

Fuller, Casey

Floodwall Magazine Volume 2 Issue 10 Fall 2024 Article 36 December 2024 This Pencil Casey Fuller How does access to this work benefit you? Let us know! Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/floodwall-magazine  Part of the Poetry Commons Recommended Citation Fuller, Casey (2024) "This Pencil," Floodwall Magazine: Vol. 2: Iss. 10, Article 36. Available at: https://commons.und.edu/floodwall-magazine/vol2/iss10/36 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Floodwall Magazine by an authorized editor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact und.commons@library.und.edu. Fuller | Floodwall70This Pencilsparked the industrial revolution. This pencil was chewed on by a stray catthat saved your super-lost life. This pencil can work as a slide bolt between all your doors. This pencil was retrieved by your snot-nosed cousin Doug inside the cage where they keep the brown bears. Karl Marx used this pencil to scratch an itch on his proletarian ass. This pencil once held a haphazard bun in Sylvia Plath’s dark and golden hair. A handle of sock strips wrapped around the eraser end once helped you escape prison by using this pencil as a shiv. Behind Nixon’s ear this pencil once sat smelling like bitter infections. Twirling in the back of class this pencil once flashed in the hand of some slack-ass kid, some student named, what was it, Bingo, Jhango, Rango? This pencil kept the box score for Nolan Ryan’s sixth no-hitter that your grandpa won’t stop talking about. The idea for bifocals came to Franklin with this lone pencil. Automatically, without thinking, as if it were just another task in his agrarian world, each year Jefferson casually inventoried all his property at Monticello with this pencil. Also, no lie, this pencil is made from the cherry tree Washington hatcheted down when he was six. Thousands of angels can fit on this pencil, thirty-one saints, all gods. Napalmed jungles couldn’t burn this pencil down, nor Oppenheimer’s bombs (although its penumbra is tattooed forever on a half-melted wall). The rumor of its greatness compared to the swordis exaggerated, however. It must be sharpened, wielded correctly, and found bythe right hands. And those hands, those hands, those vulnerable hands—they must reach out into each variety of the fire, and pull it out again and again, again and again.1Fuller: This PencilPublished by UND Scholarly Commons, 2024Floodwall  | Fuller71Casey Fuller is still a regular old PhD student at the University of North Dakota.2Floodwall Magazine, Vol. 2, Iss. 10 [2024], Art. 36https://commons.und.edu/floodwall-magazine/vol2/iss10/36

English

This Pencil

Undated photo of building on the Grand Forks Fair grounds lot, same location as today. The building burnt down and was replaced by Liberal Arts building, which in turn was taken by fire.https://commons.und.edu/gf-city-photos/1190/thumbnail.jp

Buidling on the Grand Forks Fair Grounds

Cast of Anniehttps://commons.und.edu/performing-arts-photos/1078/thumbnail.jp

Annie

Cast members of The Pajama Game at the Chester Fritz Performing Arts Centerhttps://commons.und.edu/performing-arts-photos/1072/thumbnail.jp

The Pajama Game

Cast of Best Little Whorehouse in Texashttps://commons.und.edu/performing-arts-photos/1131/thumbnail.jp

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