give it to you
that will undo your
fastenings with its teeth
and
lay you
out like it was murdering you
when really it was making you live?
After the reading is done
it will take maybe twenty minutes
for you to be able to move again
just lying there with the volume
spread open
on your chest: its cover,
jacket removed, moving
in time with your breath
A poem where
afterward you need a cigarette
to escort you back to the world
outside its lines because you
came that close to forgetting
that people had needs at all
And maybe the next morning
when you come back
to its pages the passion
will have dwindled some
it will seem somehow tired
in the light, its
movements and print both
a little less bold
But when you read it
(now at your desk
with your glasses on)
it still reads you back
with a tenderness
and understanding
that was absent in
the lustful evening
and you will maybe think
it's better that way: to be
who you are in its company, to have
the poem see you hungry and wanting
but still know exactly what to say.
