It would have been better if the Library burned.
To see it like this
is almost too terrible to stand.
In the color of weak tea gone cold
dust-frosted windowpanes warn you away
from forlorn moaning of rust-frozen hinges
struggling to recognize approaching presence,
distinctions between newcomers and regulars an ever-dimming memory
The hard bone of concrete peers through
heel-worn carpet scrubbed of pigment
uneven sags of wallpaper droop, clenched by faith in powdering glue
their browned waterspots keeping watch over
withered houseplants, spectators to the cruelty of decay
desiccated vestiges
Gone is that entrancing
tea-vapor smell of old books
immersion on entrance:
transition to a warm bath from a rain-chill day
vacuous in absence
suffocating weight: mildew and stagnant air
look away | keep going | remember it as it was.
In the corner, wisp-web temple
the bulky printer fossilizes, strange artifact from
an age without merit
it hears only cadent skittering
discordant mouse-throat renditions of the work song
its squeaky print rollers once sang to
anyone who would listen
above the hushed chatters of discourse
the three old men in the corner, veiled in the weekly paper,
armchair oracles with nowhere to be.
Where is the bubblegum laughter of storytime
ruffle of pages, clacking hen-pecked keyboards,
the heartbeat stamp of due date cards circulating diluted
sums of humanity in and out, clutched like oxygen-clung cells
breathe out—breathe in—breathe out
nourish—return—nourish
Even the most way-set librarians have abandoned
unceremonious posts, leaving questions
echoing unanswered from rafters
Why / Why / Why
Card catalog remnants, huddled together
disheveled, haphazard in rust-sealed bunkers
of jammed drawers can offer no answer
What used to lie between Andromeda and Anemia?
Where shelves once swelled like farmhand muscle
burgeoned by weight of novel thoughts, ancient recitations,
only atrophy lingers, dust the sole
witness to relay movement of tomes succumbed to stillness
a feeble shadow reciting the fading
memory of what it felt like
to be strong
Between slouch-spine volumes, gaps litter shelves
buckshot mosaic
to reach for a book, only for your fingers to trace its absence: monumental loss
it always used to be here
like that last ghost step your foot remembers at the staircase’s end—
you know because the familiar feel of its clothbound
spine in your palm lingers even as
hands close on the jarring pitiless confusion
of hard ground denying your footfall
It would have been better if the Library burned.
Alexandria in all its tragedy still smolders in hearts of those who never
tracked in tide-worn sands, whose fingers
never traced the roughspun papyrus of the larger world
they still damn Caesar in their heart and
pine, mourning for scrolls reduced to ash
particulate memory breathed secondhand
Yet no one remembers that little corner library the next town over
now an eyesore relegated out of focus, victim of renewal
efforts and budget cuts and the inescapable sentence of calendar pages
you glance at it as you pass, muttering some ephemeral eulogy
a real shame that place has been left to rot
but then you’re beyond, yawning roadscape pushing
billboards and LED store signs upon you, flashing colors and limited-time offers crowding
crumbling ballasts out of your mind
after all,
deterioration is nothing to dwell on
