you who carry the world in your palm
the weighty equivalence of Alexandria’s wisdom
inside a slender electronic case
may never know

how we who trespassed among the isles

where one winked wickedly
another flashed a sumptuous jacket
yet another drunkenly sideways
stared us down
amused

fell for
most often a quickie
an all-nighter
sometimes
were rendered captive
for a lifetime
by a spine
cracking open
waving leaves in breezes
like the anemone
in deep-sea raptures

that one
a potter because a Japanese
book of cookery’s aesthetic
oddment of finery for food display
consumed him
that other
mounting the ladder
of terza rima
through hell
high water
to Paradise

Image: Flickr, “The Country House Library” by username: THOR (geishaboy500), under the Attribution 2.0 Generic license.