A quest of nine, two young lovers,
seven stages of life
trapped between two covers:

Our hero begins his journey on a shelf,
squeezed between Hemingway and Wilde.
Carpeted in dust, lonely,
resembling a lost child.

A helpful buyer,
low and behold,
rescues our hero.
The two fly off into the cold.

He is jostled around
between a wallet and key,
before being thrown, roughly,
on to the vanity.

However, later that night,
tea warm in hand,
his spine is stretched,
his words are scanned.

This operation is repeated,
every night or other.
A week of bending, flexing,
His pages and his cover.

But he can feel it ending,
his pages wearing thin.
The cover closes,
another bookmark thrown in the bin.

Squeezed between Tolkien and Faulkner,
our hero is back on a ledge
Poised, waiting,
dust carpeting its edge.

Megan Kelly ’19