WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE LIBRARY 

It was air-conditioned—

Such a nice place for a kid

Such a fag little bookworm

It smelled inside just like—

The ‘50s Eisenhower Era

So calm & postwar moderné

_________

I hid away in the stacks—

Row after row of books

Secluded and safe

Reference Room windows—

Tall like some Temple in

The middle of Nowhere

______

How did Kansas rate—

Such an Oasis there

In the middle of nothing

Straight up Commercial—

From the Santa Fe tracks

To kitschy Twelfth Avenue?