written a few years ago, edited recently

See how she stalks the shelves

head canted, intent on her prey:

metaphorical morsels and idea-snippets

to pull up into a whole,

following the noble tradition

of children weaned on the blood of the library.

It is hers–the old women but man it.

Her fingers clatter across the hightech catalogue and–

find an unexpected tidbit.

See she’s off among the shelves again, sensory array

trained by unfatal need to instinct, not to Dewey.

Out of her first element, the next is the night–

far flung islands of completeness in a shorn world.

The wind cools; her neck cranes. The vastnesses

are inky indeed, speckled

with glints in unruly pattern

a tapestry of half-knowns.

She stands like this, locked in her tryst with Orion

the Hunter’s caresses manifest argent.

Star-lost, held by warriors made of nothing

but love flung to a distance

she is yet lonely