Books

together

A Poem about books!

Juxtaposed Accounts Of Reality

Margaret Mitchell sits bind to bind with Toni Morrison
Two books away, a paperback of O’Brien smashes with an O’Connor
(A Good Man is Hard to Find)
Danzy Senna shares a shelf with JK Rowling and Shakespeare,
Tolkien touches Toure and Tartt who is flanked on the left by Stephenson.
Looking above, a mass market Neil Gaiman hides beside a Ken Follett epic
In the same line with Victor Hugo and Khaled Hosseini
Bookended by Rebecca and two thirds of an NK Jemisin trilogy.

Meanwhile, a misplaced Adam Johnson shares short stories with Chinua Achebe
Who sits next to Naomi Alderman, next to Dante down four tiles from Backman 
and a misplaced Boo (whose nonfiction doesn’t belong on these shelves);
One shelf down though,  Johnson is correctly next to Jemisin’s latest
And Ta-Nehisi Coates clings between Jon Cohen and Chris Cleave,
The latter of the list is missing its sleeve. 

In another shelf reserved for cherished, special editions
A complete set of Anne of Green Gables stands next to a photograph,
A wine decanter, and a haphazardly tossed Grisham paperback.
Aged editions of Twain, Schulz, and Milne intermingle with 
The faded covers of The Little Prince, Tom Thumb, and The Swiss Family Robinson.

Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver dominate the next shelf, 
But Steve Martin manages to sneak in along with Joy Harjo,
Chris Wiman, Kate Baer, and some others, including an unused cutting board
Shaped like the state and a few photos featuring wedding gowns.

Too many cookbooks and a barely used dictionary sit by
Independent children’s publications over baskets of board books
Across from the likes of Llama llama and Shel Silverstein.
Selznick’s sketch eyes me over Rachel Held Evans, Peter Brown,
Mo Willems and other titles of childhood joy.

The personality test wants to know
If I have many friends who don’t know me well or
A small number of friends who know me well.
As though either statement is a lie.

In wordy wordiness,

Walter