Sometimes at night in this year of
renewed aloneness I walk the perimeter
of the house, tracing the border between rare
and good for nothing. I think about
the college’s bookplate. I think about
the younger self that wanted to be done the same,
have the stamp of place forever adorning
my endpaper. Elsinore overheard
doubling from my mouth, perfect little
star. I lie down on the couch, staring up at
a god-shaped hole and an emerald
comet, still missing that enchanted sense
I used to have—the feeling that
deep in the stacks, warm to the touch,
all the answers were waiting
in bodies of breathing ink.

Jeremiah Moriarty is a queer writer from Minneapolis. His poems and stories have appeared in The Rumpus, No Tokens, Puerto del Sol, Catapult, Breakwater Review, and elsewhere.
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