Reduced the only way he’s been for years,
that is to say he is reduced to tears,
the would-be writer reads an Amis book
unwillingly to end, this book which took
him by the throat and shook him for his heart
and, had he had one, would have made him part
with it and life. Such brilliance set in word
has lifted him and though he finds absurd
the fact a book can act to stir his blood
from encroaching stasis he admits the flood
of thought and non-thought it has set loose will
bear evidence he is at times still real.