Keats Reading

Keats was reading all the books
inside the library at Alexandria,
maps of Atlantis, pictures of Hercules,

blueprints for the Trojan Horse,
the beauty that was Helen,
the rats that gnawed the wheat.

He worried that his life would end
while there was ink
left in his pen.

His lungs would search for air---
the atoms that we breathe
used up on London Bridge,

the carpenter had wasted them on houses,
the blacksmith had hidden them,
in of all places, underneath horses.

He worried that he would not write
that great poem to store his soul, his life,
but, if you scratch his poetry, you draw blood.