Reader of an Empty Book

Here’s an empty book to read,
As if, as if you could know.
The book, old book, goes like so:

It comes to an end, quickly
Enough. It comes to an end,
But no end’s ever the end.

Hands like dying birds
In the lap of the question:
What is the one thing
Here in this room of fading?

The reader wanted balance,
“Between your heart and all that
Other stuff,” she said.