Birthplace

someone in your family once read my novel

or maybe studied it at school

I found an old copy

an early Penguin edition

down behind the back row of books

at the bottom of your bookcase

the front cover was ripped off

but I could tell they had appreciated it

because the title was pencilled

about thirty times on the front page

there was a recipe for fruit cake

in the blank space between sections one & two

scrawled down the margins of pages 126 & 223

were the departure & arrival times of the North Coast Mail

& across the back flap

the names of fourteen people

who used to be alive

frozen in a line

like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery

View this poem on The Disappearing »