"Reading" by Ed Brickell

Reading

I like how the words are illumined from within,
How there are settings to change how they appear.
How the ghost of a book rustles when I swipe the screen,
How when I look up, I see my life of yellowed paper,
Sturdy and serene among shelves that began filling
With my mother, reading to me how Alice fell down a hole
That I’ve been falling down ever since. I like the way
I can change the size of the words or the shape,
How the size and shape can change the words
And what they mean. When I came home from college
To a room of empty shelves, she wasn’t much for words.
“We need the space,” she said, tight-lipped,
Starting some less happy fable for herself
I was too angry to hear, words and meaning shifting
Into language all her own. How changing the light
Can make things more difficult to read.
How later she was restrained and stood by
The locked doors of different nursing homes,
Forehead pressed against the frames. “I need to go home,”
She said and said, her last story on repeat. How near the end
Her eyes opened to gaze at me in sudden wonder,
Some old bookmark stuck in her scattered pages,
Our twin surprise arriving at the end of us,
Shared silence illumined from within.

Ed Brickell

A 2025 Best of the Net nominee for poetry, Ed Brickell lives in Dallas, Texas. His poems have most recently appeared in The Harvard Advocate, Delta Poetry Review, Susurrus, and others. He is currently working on his first chapbook, Wonderful Copenhagen.

Headshot: Janet Harris

Photo Credit: Staff