The acceptance of my poem, “Hipbones of the Patriarchs,” by Pudding editor Connie Willett Everett represents a happy confluence of loyalty and persistence. This poem has been through innumerable revisions since it was written last century on an Apple II-E computer. It has also undergone countless editors’ rejections since then until the version finalized in August of this year and taken by Connie today to be published in her first edition of 2023. Pudding, or as it used to be called under a previous editor, Pudding House, and I also go back a ways. To wit, Pudding House published my 3rd chapbook, Mr. Ubiquity, in 1997 and my 4th chapbook, The Fast of Thoth, in 2002. Additionally, “Hipbones of the Patriarchs” will be my 10th individual poem published by Pudding magazine since 1995.