A LIBRARY IS TO BOOKS AS A SKELETON IS TO
Sam Collier
And don't we all crumble. And doesn't the rain
come. And nights when I roam this city, don't
the lights bricks trash restitch me. And weren't you
built of doorways, and wasn't my spine
flame. And didn't I find music in your ribs,
and were there rooms of riddles,
and did they smell like searching. Was it all
aisles in the dark. Wasn't the whole place held
together by thunder and dreams. Get lost in me,
you said, as if I hadn't set a knot of blackbirds loose
inside your halls, as if I could unlight a dozen fires,
or pour the milk back out of the tea. Already lost,
didn't I learn language at the root of you, wasn't
my mouth translating songs, didn't my bones hold
daylight. Was there nothing in my sheets but sand.
SAM COLLIER lives in Chicago. Her poems have been published in Prompt Press, Guernica, and Pure Francis. Her plays have been developed and/or produced by PTP/NYC, New Ground Theater, Horse & Cart, and Theater Nyx. She holds an MFA in playwriting from the University of Iowa.