To Books and Women I Sing

One woman was almost named “Avioneta.” Another had a library in the back seat of her car. Another fractured a finger with the rebellious shelves of her bookstore. The cigarette factory workers listen to readings while they work. The ironing women remember poems. To all of them, I sing. Against fire, water, moths, dust, ignorance, and fanaticism, an anonymous army of women takes care of books. It is an intimate resistance—without epic, without revolution, without weapons.