by Peter Taylor
They don’t allow books
to be thrown in the ward,
so they don’t allow books.
I have decided to become
a subversive librarian.
Each night
I smuggle a few more in
and put them on my shelf.
I have recovered most of the original ones,
and added more.
When the shelf is full, I build another.
I’m surprised no one has noticed this.
Each morning
I take a book from the shelf
and read stories to the others.
They like my stories,
and I like reading to them
from my books.
When I remember.
Peter Taylor lives in Canada and has published Trainer, Aphorisms, The Masons, and First Epistle to Dr. Torr. His poems have appeared in Canadian Family Physician, Canadian Author & Bookman, Descant, FreeXpresSion Australia, Grain, Harvest, Open Minds, Poetry Australia, and Waves and have been anthologized in The Best of Grain and We Stand on Guard. Antietam: A Verse Play was an award winner in the 2010 War Poetry Contest in Northampton, Massachusetts.