An overfull bookshelf
once read             gone
unremembered other than
good                      bad
recommended     not
mandatory supposed to
in need of guidance on postmodern non-references alluded to
(taunting: what you miss
ruins it).

Twenty-one books by C.P. Snow
your father gave you
to better understand the depression
bound into three volumes
seven books a pop
too heavy to carry around
becoming stained
by the nightly water glass
on your bed stand.

You meant to
read International Relations in Political Thought
(rapidly becoming outdated)
before you left the class it came with.

Midnight’s Children
you should have finished,
finally, structure grasped
now, alas you must attempt
to re-orchestrate your brain
fifteen minutes per day,
the daily subway ride
of translocation;
it’s too much to expect
that you could get there from here
but your bookmark keeps moving along
making unremarkable stations.

The Bonfire of the Vanities
sparks summer
memories of reality distant
enough that it was fun
to read about.

Europe Through the Back Door
oh the tangents it takes you too
you really never thought, never thought you knew
that would be the last time
you would spend gallivanting without care
of what might come to pass next
so long as a dirty hostel was available.

Not that much of anything is impossible now
but that space between
what isn’t and what is
grows with the hours you look at this shelf
and wonder what to read.

The Completed Poems of Plath, of Hughes, of Hayden
of all those never enough read
too often thumbed through
sit
sit down
a page at a time
do not proceed
do not return to the bookstore
or the library, or your friend’s house
invest in what you meant to take
into your mind

your time

today.