Books-A-Million – 30/30 Day 5
There is a section titled “New Age”
in a “Books-A-Million,”
in a mall,
in Sterling, Virginia,
with everything from “Wicca Cookbooks”
to Marx’s “Communist Manifesto.”
It is a small wonderland
located in a corner
in the back of the store
between the “Kids” section
and “Special Needs” section’s books
on pregnancy,
“10,000 baby names,”
and divorce.
The “New Age” section
is a single bookshelf
like an open mouth.
All of its mismatching pieces
crammed together
like crooked teeth:
- Christopher Hitchen’s “The Portable Atheist”
- “The Dreamer’s Dictionary”
- a book by the Dalai Lama
- Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”
- tarot cards
- and a book on Chinese Astrology
The unruly rebels that somehow fit nowhere
in this vanilla bookstore
except here,
like punishment,
sitting in the corner.
The words, “New Age”
hang over their exposed spines
like a dunce cap.
But I tell you, I see genius.
This suburban bookstore is like uranium
for the nuclear family.
Indoctrination
veiled under the auspices of education.
Books are supposed to make you smarter,
but let us not forget that books
are old media.
In Books-A-Million,
there is a whole six book cases
filed front to back
with bibles and “Christian Fiction.”
Five shelves
in the “Religion” section
are catholic.
On the sixth and shelf closest to the floor
is a peeling sign card with the tape showing.
It says, “Islam.”
It is a vacant mantel but for four books
two of which have nothing to do with Islam.
- “The Mormon People”
- “Th Essential Judaism”
- “Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle”
and, I kid you not,
- “The Islamic Anti-Christ.”
If ever there is a second crusade,
it will not begin in the suburbs of Virginia.
But there is a conquering here
in the arrangement of the books.
Across the aisle,
armor-clad warriors pose
with their guns
and their women,
exaggerated muscles gleaming
from their glossy science-fiction covers.
The “New Age”
is a corner in the bookstore
that smiles like San Francisco.
The “New Age”
is black magic and communism.
The “New Age”
is a rapidly industrialized ghost
that dreams of a godless sky.
This is how we make war
in Sterling.
In the New Age.
