bookshelves

The smell of print and ink and worn pages
greet me as I walk slowly through the columns of books
tracing my finger along their spines
My eyes glance quickly between titles, across authors
Near the end of that shelf
I stop to pick one
And right then and there
I fold onto the floor
crack open the honey-colored pages
and quietly begin to disappear.

hands

The setting sun lights up
Tiny handprints,
scattered along the window,
that mark the moments
when a child's ungraceful steps
depended only
on a sheet of glass
to keep stay upright
-- slowly, slowly
it begins to crack
and we all fall through.