I love the way books cannot be
unread, cannot erase the sweet oils
and thumbprints like black oak tree rings
they are there for all the slivers
of sunlight and literary cafune
soft knuckles pressed into their
spines
they remind me that while I am not new
I can remain unknown, that though
opened by some I am neither novel lying in wait
or closed into his old bookshelves,
a thin draft in a library of what-ifs
he did not get to k e e p you
however you did, you did
found your
way into other hands, without much grace, albeit,
baltering from home to home
a solivigant prose--

this way, and that, small bind
paperback.