Ex Libris

A volume of verse
With a library stamp,
The dates of borrowings,
Marks and imaginings,
And the brutal cross-hatch
Of its cancelling,
A literary execution,
One final unshelving,
But now, in my hands.
 
Gingerly I turn each page,
Not to let the sound,
Nor to let the touch,

The silent imprimatur
Of each memory, of thought
And place and age,
Escape from the leaves.
Here, a coffee ring
Stamped on 'summertime',
There, an underline by,
‘Why ask for more?’
And then another,
A faded underscore,
With just, ‘Who grieves?’
I linger on the most worn,
Where a broken spine,
Or fragment torn,
Show an unexpected halt.
And almost magically,
I take the place
Of the one before,
Poring over words
Like a little child,
Alone and standing,
Without a single notion,
By a shining crack,
In a cellar door.