After the River Entered the Library

At dawn the card catalog smells of rain and iron. Minnows thread the alphabet, silver commas in A through C. A paperback swells like bread left to rise in moonlight. Somewhere under Reference, a current hums in Latin.

We wade between biographies; jackets bloom into kelp. Portraits of emperors buckle, then float faceup and calm. Every shelf relearns balance with a patient, wooden groan. The ceiling fan turns slowly, stirring weather over maps.

Children arrive with jars, not to capture but to listen. They kneel by Poetry and hear the spines click like reeds. Each title opens its gills and drinks a different century. Even silence has scales, bright and quick at the ankle.

By evening the river thins, leaving light in puddled squares. We set the books upright; they drip constellations onto tile. Tomorrow the pages will dry into a softer grammar— one where every sentence remembers how to swim.