is the only place I know in the city
where you can still see people with pen
and paper. Legal pads, spiral bound,
plain or college-ruled loose leaf, well-thumbed sheaves
of paper at every crumb-strewn table: précis,
postulations, undergraduate observations, sound
doctoral theory, a shady spot of fiction—
each hand the only one in the world
to produce such symbols, personal as fingerprints,
errant y’s and flighty t’s,
g’s trailing their tails like apprehensive
dogs. It’s a deep, low-ceilinged room, illuminated
dimly by porcelain snowdrops on the walls,
a foreign spring, ripe with words’ secret burning.