A man folds like a document
flat on the pavement. A crowd
gathers but doesn’t touch him.
I walk past as fast as I dare.
My footfall leaves a sticky film
that could entrap other people
if they aren’t pure enough at heart.
Place-bound, husky with effort,
I tote books that contains secrets
that could shift the angle at which
July sun fricassees egos.
I intend to throw these books
into the harbor. The salt water
will erase every indecent word,
every political thought, every scene
involving revolution or wit.
The man lying on the pavement
wrote one of these books. The scent
of its library binding felled him.
Maybe when his book goes to sea
and sheds its subversive notions
he’ll revive, and the crowd will sigh
with relief or disappointment.
The glitter of his life will resume,
his spouse will re-embrace him,
and his grave brown literacy
will return with good intentions
not even our rich man’s government
can resent. I walk faster, faster,
but the books try to drag me
into a coffee shop to sit and read
and avoid the complex of shadows
casting bones and debris in the streets.