Library before dawn
  
It is still, all asleep, Cabernet 
relaxes against the glass.
The books facing me 
remind me of the girls,
dresses all different colors,
lined up across the hall at 
CYO dances, facing the boys,
standing straight, short and tall,
giving a certain flavor 
and aroma to the room,
while waiting to be chosen.
 
Full of words, but too shy 
to speak aggressively -
always the whispering though
as now the shelves 
begin to faintly vibrate.
Dorothy Parker quietly denigrating 
Pound about his politics,
Pastan to Dickinson about the 
economy of her pain and
Plath very low to Sexton 
on the craft of death.
 
I vaguely make out Eliot 
criticizing my choice of wine
when Whitman hushes them all
and wants to get back to the 
slow-dancing of teenage boys, 
first gropes to ‘Wonderland by Night’ -
comparing it to my handling 
of their volumes and my occasionally 
taking them individually to the car
apparently for closer inspection.