the stacks

I'm in the stacks saving books

and magazines headed for the shredder:

A short history of Lollapalooza County

Butterflies of Argentina,

Radio Play Digest of 1939.

I keep them in six self-storage units,

shelves and boxes, floor to ceiling.

All the yellowed words and pages

even Google has abandoned.

On Saturdays I hit the stalls and canopies

at all the region's flea markets and yard sales,

scrounging Look, Life, and Fortune magazines.

instruction manuals for obsolete appliances,

service station road maps, faded travel brochures.

My scanner is a time machine.

for rendering the ephemera:

the orphaned playbills,

going out of business coupons,

twenty-five cent detective story grit.

..............and so........

At three a.m. in August '53,

I'm on the Santa Fe Southwest Chief

passing through Topeka on my way to LA

to catch a liner bound for Bora Bora.

Wearing the straw fedora I found in the margin

of page 98 in the May '52 issue of Argosy.

With Lana Turner cuddled against my shoulder.

She's sleepy from all the oysters and champagne we swilled

down in the diner. and she's oh-so-grateful

since I rescued her from the Russian saboteur

who had tied her to the bed in that flop house in Chicago.

She whispers some intriguing possibilities in my ear

and we got a lot of miles before we roll into Union Station.

Lights are flashing red at some lonely crossing,

and then......

the scanner's whine awakens me,

and I send the file of Argosy page 98, May 1952

to the server in the closet.

It's 3:47 and time to grab a couple hours of shut eye

before it's time to head back to the stacks
in the basement of the library.

No wait, it's Saturday!

Got a few more hours to sleep and then, the flea market.

where I hope to see, Lana, that semi wilted flower child

from the sixties who has that booth with old copies

of Life and Look and Fortune, and brochures

for South Pacific cruises.

She winked at me last week, perhaps she'd like to share a drink,

take a trip in my time machine and explore the possibilities.