Zelda's Inferno exercise: writing from a list of theme words. I choose "book", which connected with what i wanted to write about anyway.
I fell in love with a librarian again today -
it's not the first time
twenty years, since that elementary school platonic crush
on the woman who kept that safe and quiet space of knowledge
and let me take her books home
and when I finally learned to ride a 10-speed bike
there was the Rosedale libary
and I, too shy to speak
would sometimes hang around reading boring magazines
just to watch a girl who worked there shelving books
and high school, mornings when it snowed and schools opened late
my father would have to drive me in before he went to work
and I'd have an hour or two to wait
I'd spend it in the school libray
just the librarian and me, homey,
almost a 50s sitcom scene, me sitting reading the newspaper, she hustling around
once driving through Connecticut
lost hundreds of miles from any place I knew
I stopped in a library to get directions
I could think of nowhere better
Alexandria, I would have died for you
So this pretty girl today - I didn't even get her name
but she renewed my library card and
let me take her books home
and these days, I tend to buy books
feed my specialzed knowledge-hungers with the exotic beyond library fare
but
I'm already thinking up excuses to go back during her shift