Heat bubbles up and cloaks this whole place
until I’m taking stifling breaths
and wiping slick sweat from my forehead
as I pour over pages. Even the faded cat
won’t raise her head or let me pet her.
We’re tall but the shelves with their gray-smelling books
loom over us sort of like hugs, sort of like thunder.
There used to be a song all the little girls could sing
that made a novel seem more like a summertime adventure.
There’s a copy of a children’s book bound
in a green tattered cover with only the silhouette
of a teenage girl and magnifying glass on the front.
You tell me Don’t get it. You don’t need it.
So I set it down, then pick it up again and imagine
pocket watches whose hands forever point upward,
typewriters that click but don’t leave any ink,
other people’s polaroids being sold at yard sales,
every poem I’ve written that I’m too scared to show you.