#bordered sallow

[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.