After Emily Dickinson’s “There is no Frigate like a Book

the small begin of i
in to look 
                       up
all the way
                       up 
the wall of 
books that break 
the heart of a 
child open to love   
who does not yet
know desire except 
when she desires 
cathedrals of words that gather 
dust
await the eye 
—to see was to love—
hungered on hunger 
sweeping across a paginated world
perfected 
in misery in
love in words spent with 
books and time
algorithms of the
ever in spirit 
the extended minute 
stretched to 
goodbye to 
leaved portals
                       to
the worlds 
of other to

forever. 

Copyright © 2023 by M. NourbeSe Philip. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 31, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.