Between Shelves

The air here is thick with the weight of almosts.
Books lean toward one another,
spines whispering the titles they wish they’d been given.

On the floor, a stack of drafts waits without complaint.
Some are missing their middles,
                            others their endings,
but all of them know the sound of a reader’s breath
when they’ve found the sentence worth keeping.

I walk the aisle slowly,
palming the dust as if it were a kind of currency.
Paying my way deeper into the silence.

.

.