How the room is like a library, grief
collected each night as she falls.

How she stumbles across the steps
of the library, pages of glass

buried in her skin. The library
is where he removes the glass

then leaves his hands like a page
unturned on her thigh.

How the doctors move like a library,
the unread sentences a red

awakening placed on reserve.
How the library shakes the body

but never his hand. A library
drowns the monuments she sees

each night before sleep. A library
pinches the arm, her nerves

encased through glass.
How she buries him in the arm,

the disease of the library
blistered, restless. How she plans

the funeral in a library, every book
a litany of urges to borrow and return.