Within her allotted corner by candlelight
the storyteller begins to craft her words
inside her head
are stored the library books of her childhood
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end ⠀⠀⠀torn
the walls became the world all around ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀banned
tiny windows looked down sadly ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀burned
never budge an inch to the west ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀bombed
flung off their shelves as air strikes
target every one of their pages
She remembers walking from fiction to poetry
with The Sympathizer wedged between elbow and hip
reaching for The Prophet
admiring their spines
neatly grouped
according to how long a writer
carried a story
They were quiet creatures until they were borrowed
and opened
at night
in the glow of her lamp
Searching the reserved catalogues
in the section of her memory
she finds fragments of a girl born three centuries ago
in a time of another invasion
Bouboulina was birthed in the dungeons of a prison…
This is the story
the storyteller will gift
to the small group of children
feeling their way towards her
they know her corner well.
