Arrogance

at the bookstore, the superstore

in Baltimore, on the bayfront that

used to be the power plant, waxing

brass into a Hard Rock Cafe, 

where the coffee shop sells

tea, but offers no outlets, 

there's a woman, she

asks where the

SparkNotes 

are.

at the bookstore, the 

power plant turned

brass, where history, 

where passion, where 

the musings  of ghost

writers past and 

present soak 

into the very walls,

she asks where the

SparkNotes

are.

you have already made

half the battle, half

the fight, you are

here, at the store,

why pay $4 for 

summaries, 

why not $5 for

masteries?

this temple to literature, spoiled,

this ivory tower wrought from

the mold only age can bring, 

where is your sympathy,

where your passion?

It seems like theft.

My own hands rise,

before my eyes, guilty

they remind me of

only moments before, 

when I traced  my way through 

the  bookshelves, in bookstores I 

have no qualms, I touch every passing 

book, I smell them, their newness, 

listen to their crinkling backs, as I 

open them for the first time, 

then put them back.

My guilty hands ask

if they too should be cut off, if

it were such a sin when they rubbed

through Robert Frost, lingering on 

the white page, before taking the whole

collection of Glück, seventy years in the making,

and leafed through it in 15 minutes, sucking

inspiration greedily, randomly,

before putting it back on the shelf, 

dirty fingerprints having

taken their fill.

Or this morning,

waking up at seven, seeing

the sun with its rays filtered by 

downtown streets, the early morning

heat, reborn in steam, risen from potholes,

the top of Federal Hill, looking over the city

so close, so far, 

seeing all that could be dreamed, the

people in their workaday suits and

jogging shorts, the kids doing  

wheelies on the pier, the 

pigeons grabbing at

any bite, all things

received freely, 

without

cost.