The Library
Jul 16, 2021
The enduring power of books
Books filled my arms
at our monthly trips to the library.
Our parents signed off on our cards.
Everything in the library was fair game:
photographs of Holocaust victims — naked and pitiful,
art books of Greek statuary — naked and symmetrical,
Roman statues — naked but imperfect,
all humanity shared through books.
Ours was a wild, no-holds-barred, freedom of the mind.
Our behavior was circumspect, modulated, quickly corrected to conform
but
the four of us could read and think whatever we wanted
and we did
and we do.
From my chapbook Diaspora.
