The Art of Reading by Kit Fan after André Kertész The last book I read before I died sits idle at my desk next to a clay dove by the window where the sun stops the wind entering but the sycamore walks through my chest and I can’t return to the page Once I stole a book from a library in Paris where the eyes of oak beams stared at me like bullet holes And once in Esztergom barefoot I pretended to be reading while examining my friend’s leather boots In Washington Square on April 18th 1969 I leaned against another oak next to a black man I fell in love with as he was reading Balzac and I forgot the lines in my hands And it was indeed an angel dressed as a girl sitting on a high wooden stool at the backstage touching Bach’s crotchets and smiling Sometimes after I lost someone I let the Seine read me And sometimes in autumn when the dead are yellowing the soil I placed my jacket among the leaves and tasted the print of newspapers Once in Luxembourg Gardens Proust ignored me On a train to K