bookseller Nov 29, 2009

I buy Demeter for a dollar fifty.
Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905. Price One Shilling.
"Written [and] acted by [the ladies of Somerville College, Oxford]
at the inauguration of their new buildings in that year," 1904.
Surely the author did not realize a tattered copy would
find its way through a hundred years into my hands, gingerly
not reading it but examining the binding (exposed at the spine-ends)
and the rough page-edges, and fawning over pages 21 through 28,
which were cut too short on the bottom,
and in general not interested in Hades' abduction of Persephone.

I buy the complete remains of Walt Whitman for four fifty.
Though his long lines do little for my shallow, digital sensibilities
Perhaps, like orange juice, I will grow to love him.

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bookseller

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