The Pyrrho of Martinsburg

I was eighteen years old when I
let my old world die,
the black wagons, the black coats,
beneath an Amish sky.

It was then that I met that sly
footnoter of footnotes
who replaced my proud assertions
with stammering and doubt.

We roamed the rural counties
rootless and alone
and I became a still stranger
in my childhood home.

But now I live at my ease with
linguistic politics
and silently recite the heroic
deeds of the heretics.