Open Stacks

by Brett Rutherford

Does your library

have one too?

A special kind of reader,

I mean. I thought

to ask you, as you maintain,

as we, the open-stack

philosophy that lets our patrons

roam freely from A to Z,

zero to infinity, from LOC

to the dusty old Dewey.

Free-range readers, I call them.

We treasure those visitors

who shun the computer,

turn up their nose at car catalogs.

They want to scan, to touch,

to run their fingers along

the embossed leather spines.

They crave the accident

by which a mis-shelved book

is the very one they need.

But now we have another kind —

do you have one like this?

He, or she, or they, or it,

no taller than a ten-year-old,

began at the farthest shelf

and is day-by-day reading

the whole library. Each book

comes down into a barely

visible hand; the pages flip,

so fast you can hardly see it,

then comes a sigh, and back

the inspected volume goes.

No title goes uninspected;

down on all fours below,

or stretching itself in ladder,

it is studying everything.

One day, consumed

with the thought of a prank

in the works, I walked up

in the shadowy aisle

and touched its shoulder.

"Just what are you about?"

I asked. A light flashed.

I found myself standing

three blocks away,

behind a dumpster.

And so I write to you,

and to a few others

I feel safe to inquire of:

are you invaded, too?

How far has it read?

What happens to us all

when they reach the end

and have yet to find

the reason for our existence?

Awaiting your reply,

I tremble.