Wyatt's Deck Book

The marcel dzama cover on nice paper aside. this is the quietest book on the shelf. and the most powerful. the tiniest little book of beauty and sadness and goodness. it fills your heart up with handclaps and tambourines and perfect harmonies. i read this wrapped up in an afghan that my grandmother had made before she died. wrapped up against the winter coming in through the cracks of the windowsills. through the 1950s thin paned windows themselves. it came right through the window and walls. to my bones. in the end. in the closing of the book and putting my hand on the cover. over the marcel dzama cover. or you. in putting the book on your handed down table. or on your thrift store table that held one thousand books. the pages of authors dead and dying and slipping into obscurity and this one on top of those. beneath a soft light. i closed it. and put it on the table. where in the tables time it had seen one hundred thousand drinks. all scotch and waters in depression glass. cups of coffee in heavy syracuse china cups. i put the book down and stared at it for that moment where the afghan becomes yarn in old hands i havent held in many years. where the table again holds crayon drawings from my childhood. drawings hung on refrigerators and then lost. my heart full of handclaps. the hardwood floors turned into a dance floor where couples from the buffalo of my mind swing and turn to the sweetest polka you ever heard. tuba's blurting. accordions. and drums and everyone swinging and turning and smiling while children climb beneath tables drinking orange soda from glass bottles.