Elsie Pine

“Well, don’t you see

this was the way of it”

—Edgar Lee Masters

“Nancy Knapp,”

Spoon River Anthology

_________________________

Elsie Pine took one look—

At me and smiled just like

Gertrude Stein there in

Paris except it was the

William Allen White Library

Instead and Miss Pine was

The Head of the School of

Library Science at KSTC,

And I was just a dumb little

Chicken in the Ninth Grade

Who loved to read books,

That’s when she nodded to

Me and told all the other

Librarians to let me into

The Stacks whenever I

Wanted which was half

My Existence in Emporia