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The Literate Lunch


Each night the train rumbles past
Shaking letters out of the old books
A rain of consonants and vowels
On the library floor
Drifts, some mornings, like black snow
A few speckles of green or red
Where illuminated manuscripts reside
The morning sweeper cleans the floors
Takes the letters home in her lunch pail
Assembles the definitive autobiography
Of somebody
She wonders who