New York Society Library

some things are just poems

Although I have wished for some time now

that the word Society was not in their title

not that there is anything inherently wrong with the word

but the way it sits between York and Library

makes it seem as though this is a library for

the Society of People who pay thousands of dollars for shoes

have houses in various places like Vail, Colorado

even so this is one of the places I love the most

(like the Cairo Public Library in Cairo, New York).

Irv Drasnin (IRV!) brought me there

many years ago when he lived down the street before

he and Xiaoyan moved to California and we were

in open stacks in every single category,

small desks where you could sit and read entire days

without worrying about grades or papers

and yesterday when I went to the library to have lunch

at an actual Luncheonette with Carolyn Waters, head librarian,

(BLT and Club Sandwich) we both discussed

why we love libraries, all those book possibilities right there

and librarians who know about all those books and then,

the libraries we loved as a child

and what we’re reading now and then I brought home my big

bag of books (new Cynthia Ozick one example)

and immediately began to read.