News at Eleven: I go up to her and I tell her about

the phone call. She tells me the books aren't here. "I don't know why that woman called you. Do you know her name?" And I said, "Yeah." I gave her the name. "Oh, no, she wouldn't have done that." In other words, she's calling me a liar. And then I see on a shelf behind her back, down near her back on the floor, the books. I recognized them because I'd used them at Wayne. I said, "They're right there, ma'am," and she said, "No, they are not." And I went around the goddamn desk there and grabbed them. She was close to hysterics. And I said, "They're not your child, honey, they're books."

from American Libraries: Poet Laureate Philip Levine

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