Jack

I have become the smaller flag on a ship, the shorter rafters of a roof, a knave in a pack of cards. I wear a skimpy coat, tall leather boot, and leather drinking flask. I am captured in a child's game and hit when grown men gamble. I am what they call a tame ape. I was a common man whose job was to lift weight. Mechanical devices that replaced my muscles took my job and pay and more—they took my human name. And I, who used to pull my master's boots, hoist meat and turn the spit, work the roller and the winch, climb the steeple, strike the bell and connect lines in telephone exchange, am a daw, the tiniest of crows, gathering loose sticks to nest in castle ruins. The solace of six centuries—and still— is once, on a high and windy hill, beside a well that was clear and full, I kissed a girl named Gylle.