Harvard Classics Five-foot Shelf Of Books Novels & Stories

A single armchair squats in the corner, worn at the arms, a reading lamp bent over it like a question. Julian Croft has a hidden library. The ice king, the man who dismantles empires before breakfast, reads poetry in secret. I walk the shelves. Keats. Frost. Neruda. Dickinson. And Rilke. A whole row of Rilke, different translations, some so loved the covers are mended with tape. I ease a thin volume from the shelf. Letters to a Young Poet. Dark blue cloth, frayed at the corners. I open it and recognize his handwriting instantly. Sharp, angular, the same hand that signed my contract at 4:52 AM.