Darkness

  stalks the books
Standing shoulder to shoulder
Like soldiers in formation
But defenseless
Against the treachery of madness
And the lights that won’t make up
Their minds to act
The darkness feeds
Like any living thing
It’s hard-wired to grow
It slips
Its slender needle
In between the pages
Nosing dramatic climaxes
And happy denouements
And stunning twists
To siphon off the ink
That will sustain it
Indifferent
To the pages’ plight
In this light the books
Seem more like prisoners
Imminent victims of a death squad
Shoulder to shoulder they hold each other up
But little by little
Letter by letter
Darkness is bleeding them
White