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Atlantis
She is an installation; a cellophane book
hung up; f o r g o t t e n
in an art gallery,
the passersby ignore her
as passersby do.
Just a slight
shimmer a
transparent disruption
of the a i r
An anomaly.
the letters inked
on her pages
are
cacographic
Inc o m p l e t e
and inc?mparabl?
why are you crying?
her words
s
p
i
l
l unheard— slip from
her thin pages
why do you carry those books:
old,
with yellowing,
dog-eared pages
that smell of
petrichor?
does it hurt?
does their weight
make you feel opaque,
seen—
touchable, even?
why do you
give them a w a y
so freely?
does it hurt?
does it hurt?
does it hurt?
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I saw a woman in the train station sitting alone and crying. She was surrounded by books that were damp from the rain. When I asked her what was wrong, she said she was trying to get money to go to the doctor for her hand, which I realized was in a brace. The bookstores wouldn't take the books, so now she was begging people to take them for free because she couldn't carry them anymore. I bought my first Maya Angelou book from her and missed the next train. Her name was Atlantis.