Suzzallo, a place of worship

I can't
remember
when it was
the last time
I walked
these stacks.
The smell
of nineteenth-
century
tomes:
the sound
of dark-
ness. The touch
of cracked
leath-
er. The taste.
Up
and down
the aisles
of centuries.
The feel
of dead
people
seeing
me.

-Esther Altshul Helfgott