From the Book:

THE READER

Well I can't stop reading, and night
descends--stars flock above my head
like confetti thrown up at a celebration,
a marriage or a bar mitzvah, as I keep reading
past midnight when the moon appears,
big as a tumor, then rises
even farther toward the zenith
and turns benign shedding its frail
happiness everywhere, but I keep reading
into morning when the sun
arrives, the moon's alter-ego,
wearing mist like one of those wispy
nightgowns tied in the back,
burning with health, even as I keep reading
while nations rise and fall...

KURT BROWN, founder of the Aspen Writers' Conference and editor of Aspen Anthology, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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