Binders

A piece of lined American notebook paper

fits easily into a three-ring American binder.

But French binders have four rings

and French paper is three centimeters longer than the paper back home.

Back home

I counted my binders: thirty-nine

holding each one in my hands, weighing its worth

take or leave behind

packing only the essential

from five years of grad school

five years of work.

Thirty-nine,

clearly marked

three-ring binders.

Now

I carefully remove some papers

shuffle

rearrange

mix them up with something I’ve just found

printed on that longer paper

forming a new workshop out of the old.

Yet neither binder holds them well:

either four fragile new holes

hover around the worn edges of three holes

or little strips of paper

jut out below the bottom edge.

I have to unfit and refit so many things---

It’s all a jumble in my head

a quavering in my gut--

trying

to fit three-hole papers

into four-ring binders.

                                8 December 2008

                                Paris, France