Tossing the Books

The joists of the attic floor are strong enough,
I see no bowing beneath the crates,
doubt they will crash through the ceiling
one fine winter night before the fire,
covering the carpet with drywall and splinters.
Still, I feel their weight bending my collarbones.

So I take up each book and blow, and a cobra
of dust threatens the naked bulb.
A tawny band frames each page of print;
the covers are leathery as roadkill.
I find a title and an author, neither
fecund enough to have survived the soot fall
that buried their upholstered age.
                                                          A quick flip
for marginalia, a loving inscription
in a spidery hand, the name of
anyone loved by anyone.
                                            Failing that,
into the black plastic bag among the rest,
a gesture with death in it, like
a sepia photograph curling in the flames.

The South Carolina Review, (Spring 2008) 40(2): 173.