The Poetry Well is a monthly column that showcases island poetry. This month includes a poem by Linera Lucas, who has won the Crucible Fiction Prize and has had poetry and short stories published in many anthologies, magazines, journals and elsewhere. This summer, she will teach a poetry class for the Reed Alumni College Writers Workshop.

The library is closed for a staff event

I go to the library as a drunk to the bar

my mother used to say

and at the time I thought wit

but now I know better

for as a singular child

I drowned myself in print

and ever since

through happier times and worse.