Waiting for an End by Fabrice Poussin

Source: Fabrice Poussin

Sitting in the somber corner in
a library like no other
forgotten under a thick layer of lives.

Volumes surrounded him
like the fortress he hoped to erect
years of unending knowledge.

Cripple within the lonely soul
he still dreamed of an encounter
with the true lives of those he sought.

But it was late in the strange alcove
still as death inside the dark silence
where he pondered every gesture.

It had been decades of abandonment
making worlds to shroud himself in hope
and he wondered how long it would endure.

As if an old monochrome print
he now appears a mass of wrinkly flesh
dead to the multitudes he persists.

He may have been a mummy
star attraction of a musty museum
perhaps he too was uncertain.

Glaring at the only page he ever knew
he slept with those he so loved
forgotten as on his first light.

Author Bio: Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.