Authorship Revisited

You're writing a book
in the library, you found one
whose bindings and faded but sturdy
fabric cover you liked, the once-
golden letters of the spine now
tiny bits clinging, flakes
barely filling in edges
of the letters that originally
had been well-stamped in. Title,
author you have pretty much scraped
these off, from memory as well. Identifying marks,
rendered nondescript. Then, surreptitiously
you smuggled it out,
bleached and dried the insides,
every page, both sides
almost clean-slate white
- a faint palimpsest at best
of the old book's print
in a near light-gray off-white
- providing the guide.

You make new, straight lines
writing in bold, neat hand
your novel: the story of
your life made whole. Every day,
you return early, and pull it
from the shelf to write more. You go
your elaborate routine, first - card
catalog, twenty minutes making notes,
pull five to seven other books as well,
all from different sections, huddle
yourself in a study carrel with books open
in front of you, and a notebook, as if
researching diverse questions, but
- really,
all you do
is to camouflage
what you are here to do: to write
in this book, that you have made
your own.

Today's part done, back it goes
to a shelf in the very wrong
section.

One day it will disappear,
you hope. You could start
another. Or else, one day

you will be found out! Discovered! Local
author; mysterious, reclusive, unusual and
his book, too. Seeks female librarian, but
not that one. Every day you write the book,
a story of your life. But you begin
to feel the white
in your knuckles as your
writing right hand
grips the pen - you are almost to the part
where the going gets hard
again and harder again. You
are chapters away,
at most,
from the place
where the star central
character, antihero
unconventional omniscient
protagonist - decides

to write a book.