Monkey Knows All

This one's been screaming out for revision ever since it was drafted for NaPo 06. It used to go under the snazzy title of "A Man Once Grew a Universe", but this title is much, much better:

Monkey Knows All

Somewhere light-less he shakes a page
from a periodical, licks the husks
of bookworms from penny-a-word ads.

Shelves squeak like storm-drain rats
as knowledge settles in un-indexed heaps:
he scavenges their racks for glue.

He posits an exit from the stacks -
he saw it, once, wood-framed with steps
when he was sniffing for fresh inks.

He is lost|found, scraping his beard
with knuckles, its snail-whorl strands
stitched in place by threads from spines.

Normally, I think gimmicks like 'lost|found' are a waste of time, but it seems to work here - just my opinion, of course ...