I revel in the gloom:

Bright choosing to be dim

Light barely reaching shelves

Hiding pulp and leather

Those curiosities

of old man Father Time

 

Here I begin my search:

Step on the creaky floors

Sounding as if a guide

Let the lack of varnish

Move your once-trodden feet

among forgotten shelves

 

At first I’m overwhelmed:

Beseech you victimless

Man not overpowered

By such beauty in truth

By knowledge in beauty

for I’m beautifully lost

 

To the North I am drawn:

A dusty rising star

A multitude amongst

My soul is being called

My path is criss-crossing

from genre to genre

 

At last I reach my bliss:

A dark, lamplit corner

Walled off from the world by

A mountain of pages

Whose greatest power is

the art of forgetting

 

Amid this fantasy

I hear the creaking of wood

The whisper of the shelves

And our life’s intrusion:

“Where the hell have you been?

It’s been seven hours…”