PACKING

Boxing books for donation
I am surprised it's now easier
to part with those whole flyleaf
might say Scribner & Sons, 1815
than far less impressively bound
volumes of modern poetry.
It might be that for most
of the contemporaries there is
still the chance of the meeting
while Pope's and Swift's ashes and dust
have long since been carried off
on the ever present wind of history.
It certainly wouldn't be
that in for precious shelf inch
the ancients bring a far greater
tax deduction.  No, not really.