old city 

there is a woman 
crumpling pages of
library books & hanging them
with fishing wire from the 
cherry blossoms
i listen to the soft 
crush of each page as she
squeezes paper in her fist
ringers on her fingers clink
as she works
i watch & she lives inside
a tapestry someone 
at a library tried to tell me about
said there are panes of fabric 
each capturing a different era
of the city 
one behind the other
pull them down & you 
could find older & older city
i tugged
the great clothes loose
each hitting the tile floor
with a slump 
dust scattering 
the room thick with a hushed 
sticky mist 
breathing it in i tasted 
old buried city & came upon
the woman crumpling pages
& hanging them from 
cherry blossoms branches
straining she reached 
billowy sleeves & hair
made of dust 
it was the same someone
who told me about the tapestries 
who planted sewing needles
in the wooden floor of library 
she ran fingers up & down 
the spines of books there
& each time she did i 
felt it as if it were my own spine 
i sat to watch her work 
& asked her what she was doing
with those pages
she didn't turn to acknowledge me
just kept on decorating
& children swarmed her
to pluck the pages
stuffing them into their mouths
hungry small beings
the city was 
just this tree back then i think 
no tenement houses 
no streets of plastic trash 
no sirens shouting themselves apart 
no libraries just library books 
& this women tearing them apart
i touched the tapestry & 
without warning it fell 
a gasp of soot
heavy soot filling the air
i waved my hands & behind
tapestry was nothing
truly nothing 
no just blank a kind of opening 
that only the old bones 
of the city knows 
i somehow leave 
back on a street & all the blooming trees
have shed themselves already
their browning petals 
on the sidewalk 
i pick up a handful 
& put it in my mouth 
let it sit in there until they
turn to paper
consider taking it out of 
my mouth to read 
but instead swallow & 
keep walking