it self-rearranges,
and that isn't a metaphor,
my books dance like the waves of prose contained inside them,
they move as radically as the thoughts of Deutsch or Dawkins,
bouncing with every bump of the road,
sometimes falling off the shelf as if my Yosemite Bigwall book is demanding ascension.
Or as if that book from my love was willing me to think of her,
to give her a call where she wouldn't answer again,
and I would leave a message even though…well you know…it’s 2018.
I built these shelves with my father,
he's in there – his busted thumb and all the errors
we made.
That we made after I saw those old westfalias,
I trusted that German utility.
We hacked and refined and specified the space to make it somewhat me proof,
no hinges or complications, no doors,
nothing fancy,
just some boards cut with care while I reminded him that I also know how to use the table saw,
but he so viscerally flowed into the craft of it all that I would just stand aside him watching
with respect at the efficiency of blade and movement.
There's the new section we built last Christmas break,
It's already ingested some of my used math books,
I worry about their spines,
anymore falls will leave them destined for an unstable amount of packing tape.
There’s also the shelf over my bed with the books friends have lent or unintentional given me.
and then there's those books with a self similarly to reality,
containing a reflexive reflection to nature in printed pages,
containing explicit explanations of earthly bodies written by sages,
Feynman's there angelically flapping in every page,
his joy threatening the wood his work rests in,
his eternal radiance jiggling so chaotically it’s barely contained in its ink.
And there's me below them in bed playing with pixels at 4am,
just willing the day to come so the sunshine can fill the leaves.