Books are my Timeline

I’ve got my torn up copy of Les Mis hashed in half
Stashed in the pocket of the car I had in high school
Your Anne of Green Gables read to a baby girl wrapped in blankets
She was my first.
The picture books start from Maynard, stories still tied up from childhood,
Dedicated to the children I have now.

The thirty books in thirty days mark the ways
I tolerated living the shelter life
My way of rebuilding the library I left behind.
When it all was still fresh in my mind.

I’ll question your spending ten dollars on a t-shirt,
But twenty dollars in books,
It’s just 20 in food for my heartstrings.
If I’m an addict it’s to the cause of filling my shelves
With a legacy, my gift to posterity
Like Dad’s copies of Dr. Seuss he’s passed to me for safe keeping.

My cookbooks mark my days as a house wife,
My shelf of poetry builds as my friends grow during my single-life
I got a row of my colleagues, children’s authors now famous,
My Nemeses or something to shoot for?

If you can’t tolerate the clutter, I suggest you head for the door.
Books are my timeline which I go by
Of the places I been that I can’t revisit again.
They mark my place.