I hold the creature nearer to my chest,

I comfort it.

Because it is your child, your dearest and most beloved,
it rests on my fourth shelf at eye-level.
It meets me in the twilight of six thirty, crying
out for you.

Every day it grows into my shelf, arguing theology
(and reality) with Piper and Lewis in the vicinity of Socrates, Little and Brown.
The alphabet matters little to me.

It (the precious) shares the yellow glow of a lamp with Roy Peter Clark
and Shakespeare, which I know you’ll never touch,
but I hope the softness and wisdom of their pages reach yours someday.

If you ever speak to me again, I promise I’ll never give you Shakespeare,
Twain or Hawthorne. Not even Hemingway will enter your presence,
and Mister Brooks will be yours,

forever and always.

[dear friend] your silence is loud in the pages of this creature.
but it is yours, so I close the cover and press it to my chest
as if this is some way of saying

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.

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