Perhaps slightly cynical,
tired of teaching a new generation
of hippies how to compose,
they still help me keep some form,
some prudence in an art
full of Poor Little Me.

Now I have to kneel
before their shelves, nervous
as tapping on an office door.
Their tutorials are no longer prose
but poetry's implicit advice
checked out, taken to heart
maybe only twice.

***

Sad as it is,
I hunch over the quarterly
imagining my name and a poem
I've yet to write. It is late
and the ghost of a biro dents the page
with half a naughts-and-crosses frame.
I thought I was alone,
but there, just above it, another imprint:
"sorry for the imprint!"

I'd spend my whole life
waiting to meet that soul '
who crossed from one plane
of paper to the next '
to offer them a working pen,
but the library is closing.

***

Yes, you work here.
But you didn't write
a single word of these works
and you weren't hired
because you knew about books.
If you would only smile
the empty shelves of people
might fill up
and alphabetize themselves.

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