Britannica

The red leather gilt-edge Britannicas

rest like an anchor

in the bottom of the bookcase.

They are my father’s,

purchased at great sacrifice

with a 1950s professor’s salary,

monuments to knowledge,

gathered and bound

yet here, largely unexplored

   CASTIR to COLE

   MUSHR to OZON

   RAYN to SARR

endless pages

devoted to iron smelting and Persia

and Jan van der Heyden and ballooning;

in the voice of an earlier generation

confident in its received knowledge.

At random, I choose a heavy, creaky volume

seeking facts for facts’ sake,

smell its musty wisdom

and wonder if

my father

ever opened to this page.