la fleur épuisée: just another out-of-print flower

The tabernacle of reading. Childhood summers, the breeze sucking cotton curtains flat to screens then whipping, puffing them back away into the room. That particular still heat, demanding still limbs, still voice, but oh, the mind running, wandering, deepening into some Other Place. The cool library, the stack of books stretching from lowered palms to stabilizing chin, the repeats, the new finds. The languid mornings, the solitary afternoons, the delicious car rides long enough for a full chapter, the flashlit nights. The scent of ink and glue.

Welcome, July. Welcome, stack of books. I have missed you.