Lacunae

All but lost for a thousand years,

It wasn’t Yorick’s skull
Or noble Alexander’s dust
They found but poor Catullus
Stopping a bunghole, stained with wine
(Or so the story goes),
Whole passages erased by time,
In a cellar in Verona. 

So soused he was, one witness said 
That every other word
Was garbled, and you wouldn’t want
To hear the ones that weren’t.
But this was for posterity, 
He reasoned, so he wrote 
Whatever he could gather down, 
And added, in a note: 

You, reader, whoever you are 
Whose hands this book may find, 
Pardon the [blank] corruption [blank] 
It is no fault of mine. 
Transcribed from an exemplar [blank]
Was [blank] corrupt as well, 
I did the best I could. If you 
Don’t like it, [blank] yourself.