What’s in these books that have come to me

although they don’t belong to me

I don’t think

to whom then should they be delivered

also I don’t know why

piled on the desk they came to me

mostly paperback

the books smell like someone’s

house is burning in the dusk

it is like having been given a hand

no a shell

bone shards from the cemetery

at the end of the bus line to cemetery hill

for books are territory of the hand

these handed up by hands that shook my spine

what is in this body that has come to me

although I don’t think it is properly mine

to whom should it be delivered

why to me I also don’t know

by what design

as though at the end of another way

I’ve been given a footprint

to trap between my hands