Library Blues
I liked an echoey aesthetic, starred
even at noon with desk lamps. Too-bold foot-
falls startled postdocs much as gunshots would.
In a musty aisle, nibbling her cards,
some burlap-skirted gargoyle—Edna, Karen,
Delores—crouched with talons flared to rush
at any Visigoth who didn’t shush.
I liked my libraries authoritarian,
not these glassed-in playgrounds with rows of screens,
with Big Bear Storytime, and Goldfish crackers,
and a coffee shop on site that grinds its beans,
whole walls that push memoirs by aging actors,
these leveled stacks, the new shelves, navel-height,
no barricades against the chipper light.
Amit Majmudar is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. He works as a diagnostic nuclear radiologist in Westerville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and three children. Recent books include Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023), The Great Game: Essays on Poetics (Acre Books, 2024), and the hybrid work Three Metamorphoses (Orison Books, 2025). His forthcoming poetry collection is Things My Grandmother Said (Knopf, 2026). More information at www.amitmajmudar.com