A Raven-haired Public Librarian by Richard Weaver

debates the merits of destroying
certain books whose read-by dates
expired decades ago, versus sending them
to long-term storage where loneliness
will certainly cause their broken spines,
and chemically darkened and brittle pages
to languish and long for death by bookworm,
all-consuming fire, or flood, anything
but a 60-watt limbo. She pauses mid-thought
before answering a question the Reference
Librarian should have answered, had he come
to work sober. Her answer is exact and Dewey
decimally precise, but clearly mystifies the patron
who eyes show fear-tinged with ignorance.
A quick floor map decorated with bread crumbs
in red ink, restores what passes for normal.
Her debate continues, though she shows already
that she cannot abandon the books to the remote
hands of uncaring book dealers, or allow them
to be pulped. She knows they will linger, unread,
unloved, in partial light, and after-hours darkness.
She admits her passive role in their slow disintegration,
little suspecting that her early retirement papers
have been signed and processed by Senior Management.



Richard Weaver lives in Baltimore where he volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, CityLit, the Baltimore Book Festival, and is the poet-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. Recent pubs: Free State Review, Mad Swirl, Spank the Carp, Triggerfish, and Loch Raven Review. He is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and provided the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars, 2005, performed 4 times to date.