Sanctuary

Vincent Hostak

March 31, 2024

Even as spring festers beneath my feet

I wander on the cold concrete 

above the boiling soil 

to the Spicewood library

And like the branch’s namesake

there hangs the smell of good softwoods

among rose brick walls,

floors of glue and carpet squares

In the aft, a canyon of stacks,

my twenty-five-century old friends,

beside a dusty chair,

murmur “Restless soul, you’re home”

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.