[Bordered Sallow]
Before the raised eyebrows and the big tut-tut,
did any of you lot ever truly try burning a book?
You have to attend, broddle and stoke, make flames go leafing
page to page, drive oxygen into the gills till a sheaf
peels open exposing its sheets to the blaze,
get the parchments – wadded and slabbed – to surrender in turn
until the effacements begin, before the retractions of ink. Even then some charred erratum or index
floats off through the trees, some ashen verse or black-edged stanza
can still be riddled from layers of sludge after rain.
How many books did I burn? Scores.
Whose books? Whose books did I burn? Reader, I burned yours.














![[Bordered Sallow]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/f5d6be48adfff2b256aed4ce77b1a79f/d9bd26dee79cbb74-a2/s400x600/7bb571e7322d8b9b370cfa9cf310605074f15d53.jpg)
