I burn books

all day, i choose them for content
and i dump them - covers akimbo
contents, chapters, spread open, vulnerable,
contained disarray in a big metal mesh
trash can

and then

i also have some wadded-up newspaper in there
packed loosely between and around the books
- for kindling, bitches!!!

and i light up a cigarette
take a long, slow pull of a drag on that puppy, and
get the coal all very good and hot and red
and i start fires

in the wadded up newspaper
and the fire spreads
like wildfire, and soon
the books catch:
bindings,
covers, blacking and smoking,
bubbling where there is ink, colorful
paperback covers turning black rainbows
hard covers, smoking
old, fabric covered covers burn dull and low
dust jackets, crisping into ash
thick wads of pages bowing and warping,
separating out, with razor-thin (paper-
thin) lines of fire tracing
the edges of the pages, as

heat expands

burning

Burn.

I stand well back from the soft roar
of literature, burning its way
into history

and I pick up my sign, as if this is
a demonstration.

My sign says

"I'm burning books!

It's ok
I have
a permit"