for Trudy
It looks as if murders of crows have nested
in the ceiling of Barnes and Noble and are now
peeing on the poetry section below.
Or maybe God himself is spitting
upon the paperback coffins of living poets
lost in dead languages.
But the clerk says it’s the broken air conditioner:
“It’s been dripping all day.”
The poetry section is soaked. A plastic trash bag
catches each drop with the sound of cracking quartz rocks
or a quick succession of letters depressed on a keyboard:
the sound of this poem or this line perhaps
if you could hear it being t–y-p-e-d.
And why not the Self-Help section or Audio Books?
Shouldn’t those aisles drown first?
Or Religion? Imagine the fanatics lined up for miles
to see a book cover with Jesus weeping real tears
or the miracle of shelves parted like the Red Sea.
The temperature tonight seems fine
in the crowded bookstore, but the air conditioner
has broken above Poetry where no one seems to visit.
Perhaps the section is lonely.
Perhaps the ceiling cries.
Sam Pierstorff teaches English at Modesto Junior College and is the founding editor of Quercus Review, a journal of literature and art. A former poet laureate for the city of Modesto, he has published more than 150 poems, and his collection of poems, Growing Up in Someone Else’s Shoes, was recently accepted for publication by World Parade Books.