She always wrote the date
on which she turned the last page,
so that each book was marked with its exit.
A simple date at the last page
so that she may place each story
correctly within her own.

He couldn't.
There was something old,
Foolishly sacred or immaculate about a book.
It seemed the kind of object to him that could never really be owned.
And yet there was no other object he so fancied to collect,
perhaps in his mind capture, as if one day
upon his departure his final breath
could unleash the stories and see them fly as butterflies from the shelves
finally free from the memories he had so tenderly held them with,
free from all the words he had never dared lay on them and yet
had echoed through his unoteful life.