Books Poem by Brian Wake

A good, Cain sighs, book, counting the steps, four, five, then resting,
six, for a moment on the seventh in his cell, is quite, good morning sir,
the purest essence of the human soul.

I’m best inside, he says, best locked away. I like to read for days on end,
the dark of Dostoyevsky with a torch, unravelling the twists of Joyce,
unbraiding Kafka knot by knot, strike Balzac like a match against the wall.

Cain stacks his books, like stairs, and climbs them to the grille. Eight, nine,
he breathes, and rests again at ten. I get, from here, a whiff of what goes on
outside, a glimmering sense of now, a diminishing sound of then.