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 Short Story: none

Essay: introduction to Victorian Devotional Poetry by G. B. Tennyson

Poem:

The Reader

by Howard Altmann

The book sat on the table

for years

before it opened to a page

exposed to light

for the first time.

In their new surroundings

the words trembled

shaking all meaning

from their assembly,

the reader unable to enter.

Then the ink began to run

past the margins

to the mahogany to the floor,

random drops collecting themselves,

expanding from within.

The reader saw fit to stand

by the window,

following a cloud

till it stalled in front of the sun,

sweeping its passage along eyes closed.

As the sky proceeded

to draw the ink from the floor,

affixing the once-quivering words

to the slow-moving cloud,

the reader read the page in the dark.

And when the day’s shadows turned in

for the night

the book closed as it had opened

without a hand,

the reader calling it a day

of prayer.