To capture the fallen grape

To capture the fallen grape

The hand squeegees out and rasps too loud against the shelf with garden books

a tall shelf, one with those heavy heave-ho books

to capture the fallen grape.

That’s the kind of thing that’ll give us away. That’s the kind of thing that

Marmalade the orange-hair scoundrel, our school marm

would have chastised us about in “Advanced Sneakery.”

For how many aeons have we perked along in the rooms behind the rooms,

living behind the bookshelves that are really doors?

Sometimes I wish I could come out into the light of day

though moonbeams through the west window and

night dances are full of joy. We are Anne Frank always

and suppressed joy, now that mortal humans cannot stand

the thought of us; their reality spaces continue to narrow.

We live in the ecotone, the thin limn, the third space

behind the bookcases they don’t know slide. One time I dropped my

writing nib, another time a nub of cheese. Getting their

refrigerator doors open can be trouble. Their insomnia

can be frightening: sudden stuttering bathrobe looming.

Sometimes the fable of the nuclear war feels like a dream.

If they would just die, as Genny suggests, we’d have the

run of the place. But life would be hard, how to get used to the

sweep of open land, the cold touch of stars, the rush of air, the rain.

We’d have to start stockpiling pincushion seeds, and wild mustard

against the frost times.

I’m game, ready to be released from

the time of humans; they’ve lost their way.

Perhaps if we can telegraph our kin

who live in the pentagon bookshelves,

we’ll do them in. 

Responding to

http://imunuri.blogspot.com/2012/06/ideas-for-prompts.html

Prompt 4:

4. Secret doors in bookcases. Pick a wall in your home, a book case or shelf, and write a poem describing the life of the beings who come and go through the secret access door of that shelf, which actually slides back to reveal... what? Use concrete words and full senses to make it real for us...