Thanks to poet Gary Margolis for sharing this timely work!

Finishing the Term
in the Library

It was most likely me
I’m remembering, one
of the last to leave,
to finish not sleeping

in the red leather chair.
Three floors down
from street level. Trying
to write the last sentence

of a semester’s paper.
Trying to become more
complete all by myself.
There in the stacks

there was another book
I’d rather be reading
and not searching for
a word to send me

home. Home being up
three flights, where tonight’s
late night librarian was closing
his book. Reading being all

he could do to pass the course
of his time. To close the big door
behind him. To turn off
the magnificent, fading, central

hall light. So the two of us could
walk out together, him to his car
and me to my passing, now-I’m-done
summer.