The Last Chained Book

     M. Lee Alexander     

In Merton College Library, I watch

the Oxford undergrad pass slowly

by the last chained book, left over

from an era when a small house could be

cheaper than a product of the printing press,

far too valuable to lend: its spine chained

to the shelf where through the years

a thousand students mined its tethered wisdom

seated at that long and narrow bench,

desk lit by nothing brighter than the sun.

She lingers briefly at its open title page:

Les edifices de Rome, Paris, 1682.

She lays its fragile calfskin cover flat

strokes the aging vellum pages

turns its fine-etched illustrations—

then slips her cellphone from her bag,

takes a picture of the antique tome

and sends it to her friend in Urumqi,

then leaves the volume in captivity

and exits into the city of sleeping spires.

©2009 M. Lee Alexander.  Reproduced with permission of the author.