The Thingy Poem by jan oskar hansen

The Thing

In my home town they were closing down
the old library, going digital, giving away
leather bound book. I parked by its door
got as many beautiful old books as I could
carry, alas, I had parked in a no parking zone
the police had dismantled my car, an officer
guarding the pieces said if I paid the police
would come back and reassemble the car,

I agreed, but it began raining, they couldn’t
come before it stopped, staggered back to
the library with my book, but it had shut its
doors for the day. And did it rain, the books,
now a dough of damp leather and wet paper
gave birth to a ugly, slimy thing that crawled
back to the library leaving asexual spores of
dense, computerized words behind.