John Swain

My Favorite Book

The glass dome radiates jade

over snow

while the swimmers echo indoors.

By morning the courtyard grayed

from rain.

I rappelled with a bed sheet

onto the stone platform below

to retrieve a book of illuminations.

Passerby in the garden pointed

as if at a suicide.

The hotel manager waited

and pulled me safely through a window,

I was still wearing my robe.

Rain warped the book cover

aching in my hands like a shore.