Thursday, November 15, 2018

[General] One Volume Missing - Rita Dove

One Volume Missing

Green sludge of a riverbank,

swirled and blotched,

as if a tree above him were shuffling

cards. Who would have thought

the binding of a “Standard Work

of Reference in the Arts,

Science, History, Discovery and Invention”

could bring back

.

slow afternoons with a line and a bent nail

here, his wingtips balanced

on a scuffed linoleum square

at the basement rummage sale

of the A.M.E. Zion Church?

.

He opens Motherhood-Orion and finds

orchids on the frontispiece

overlain with tissue,

fever-specked and drooping

their enflamed penises.

.

Werner’s Encyclopedia,

Akron, Ohio, 1909:

Complete in Twenty-five Volumes minus one —

.

for five bucks

no zebras, no Virginia,

no wars.



Submitted November 16, 2018 at 08:19AM by gunnysaxon https://ift.tt/2FrLVtn

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