Imprinted

Via #Monday Poetry Prompt -Forerunner

The lanky ninth child, called Cotton
from when he was a tow-headed tot,
dropped out of 9th grade,
attended business school,
learned to operate a linotype
and started a newspaper
in Texarkana, all before 1911.
They say it took six weeks
of patiently hand-setting type
for his paper’s first edition.
He must have missed
the linotype’s relative speed
and the elemental appeal
of letters formed from fire
and glistening melted lead
that would be the backdrop
of his later life, but he persisted,
setting his future one letter at a time
for prompt delivery every week.