8
BRAIDED STREAMS
Miriam Beck ANGLER Remembering William Stafford
He slit apart books with his pocketknife. Long slices freed pages like filets lifted off a fish-spine. He spared the stitches that held pages in signatures, sixteen pages bound together. These meaty pamphlets he stuffed into rubber bands in order, then into his backpack. Pedaling up Palatine Hill to the college, his rucksack was packed with protein for the needy. Madame Bovary, pages 91-122, key passages marked, to serve to the literature class. A cheap second-hand Rubaiyat boned out for the next lesson. He practically said grace before reading aloud, but he laughed when I questioned his way with the books themselves. What’s a book? he asked, as he coiled the cord of the overhead projector, flipped on the overhead light, and slipped his rucksack onto his shoulders with a shrug like setting a hook.
Miriam Beck