212 West Burdeshaw Street

from Miracle Strip by Matt Layne

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lyrics

212 West Burdeshaw Street

Asphalt melts in the south Alabama heat.
The old farmhouse without a/c.
Mama trundles us into her wood-paneled wagon,
a Buick, as I breathe, and drives twenty miles
to 212 West Burdeshaw Street.

Tooth-white columns book-end the door. The inside
fluoresces cool as linoleum floor upon your cheek.
The air is ink and paper and old bindings. A whirring
ka-chunk ka-chunk of a date-due stamper,
the library’s steadying heartbeat.

A mirror masks the mysteries of backroom librarians.
My brother says they watch from the other side,
but all I see is the mirror of myself staring back,
so I search and find my place to hide
in stack upon stack of books.

One day we criss-cross applesauce impatiently on the floor.
A librarian deftly threads her elephant-gray projector.
The film flickers a face in a flour-sack scarecrow mask
that fills the screen. Though I’ll often dream the scarecrow,
I seldom wake to scream.

Saint Jerome, for the book-keepers, I pray: bind them tight
between two boards so their leaves won’t blow away,
and when they turn to dust as all the righteous must,
bypass heaven’s halls to preserve, return, and carry
their soaring shushing souls to the ever-after-library.

credits

from Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022

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about

Matt Layne Birmingham, Alabama

Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet's nests and looking under rocks since he was knee-high to a peanut peg.
I reckon you oughta check him out.