A gift to me when I was seven
the inscription was in longhand:
"Presented By the Friendly Servant's
Sunday School Class".
Tarnished medallions of Thou-Shalt-Nots
bookmark the page describing Zedikiah's captivity.
Once glossy maps of Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Media
separate Psalms from Proverbs.
On the register between Old and New Testaments
I penciled in Parent's Names, Births, Marriages.
Under Deaths, my grandfather, Jacob,
in childish longhand script, the `J' ballooning like a thumb.
It is Christmas Eve.
The three-way lamp is on the dimmest setting.
A choir sings Appalachian carols.
Ezekial, Thomas, and Malachi once ivory,
now yellow, unbind themselves, holding on by a stitch.
I open to Exodus.
A leaf falls from the spine.
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