"Shucks,
books," said the unexpected visitor,
a sort of suburban man from Porlock,
flicking his eyes and fingers across the shelves.
a sort of suburban man from Porlock,
flicking his eyes and fingers across the shelves.
"They
sit there like threats, like promises.
Like
some kind of antediluvian technology.
You have these books in your house?"
And so he’s clocking titles, clocking names:
"Hemingway? Pound? This’French bird’"?
He’s after the weight of it. The tomes.
The ‘French bird’ is Marguerite Duras.
And apparently now I have too many books.
It’s what I do. Pile them up, build cases.
I usher him out between almost everything
that he and the rest might think unnecessary.
