between shelves

Between Shelves

The air here is thick with the weight of almosts.
Books lean toward one another,
spines whispering the titles they wish they’d been given.

On the floor, a stack of drafts waits without complaint.
Some are missing their middles,
                            others their endings,
but all of them know the sound of a reader’s breath
when they’ve found the sentence worth keeping.

I walk the aisle slowly,
palming the dust as if it were a kind of currency.
Paying my way deeper into the silence.

.