today in the tight stacks of the public library
I took every single Billy Collins book
and shoved them into the stroller basket
they did not all fit
so my kids carried some
my young baby sucked on the corner of Questions About Angels
and one kept falling from my arms
to the stone floor
suddenly annoying all of the people on the computers
who were damaging their brains with facebook
so we took the elevator upstairs
to where the kids learn how to fall in love with books
where they learn how to lust
we all broke spines
we all felt like junkies
for the small words on stiff paper
and everything was fine for the day
the blue cold battered up against the windows
but it did not touch us
we were hot with fever
red from reading at fast speeds
but I could not wait to get home
to lock myself into my bedroom
and fan the small books out all around my body
and marvel like a tinker
at all the poems that I had to keep me company
at all the poems that no one else in my town could read
because I had them all
like prisoners
like tiny
little
teachers
painting via Jack Richard Smith