For the Love of Books
 
The door kept my mother out.
 
Beginning the daily hour of piano practice,
I placed memorized sheet music
on the stand.
 
I covered the sheet music
with an opened hardback book.
My eyes read the book.
 
My fingers touched the keys, remembering
how the white keys tucked into black keys,
and I played.
 
My mother listened, her vacuum
banging against the door,
a metronome.
 
Every day, I read as I walked to school,
crossing six lanes of  Fourth South
with my nose in a book.
 
Once, near the school,
I was knocked over
by a bicycle.

Sarah Wolbach
 
If you have any thoughts on this poem, Sarah Wolbach would be pleased to hear them.