Lost Books

Books

He made me sell my books.
I wanted words - he wanted dope.
All my lovely volumes were packed
in boxes one day when I
came home from work.

He never took me anyplace.
But he took me to Powell's
to sell my Shakespeare collection,
my John Donne, all the Emily Dickenson -
and my cherished Edgar Allan Poe...
all the musty, strange old books
I had lovingly hoarded -
many first editions.

Next, he took me to a used bookstore
where my paperbacks could be traded
for stacks of westerns,
he would be
too high on crank to read.

Now my books live in the closet.
Safe...hidden, like Jews in a Warsaw Ghetto,
or runaway teenage girls in abandoned buildings.

It has been five years.
Perhaps soon I will get a bookcase
and let them out to stand beside my chair.
Books to me are living things to be cherished.