Their Titles and Their Jackets and Their Spines

Their titles and their jackets and their spines
lean up against each other: patient lines
of suitors gather dust.
My books retain relation to a trustless part of me –
I pick them up promiscuously:

welcome more the prospect
of what they might be
than the reality
of holding them
and turning pages

and engaging too inertly
in their printed lives. I wonder if this
bears a clue to why I cannot
seem to work a way to stay –
abide – with you: do the striving living glows

of me fear chapter headings
will depose them? – cool their heat?
Be in rapture with my bedding and my meat
for moments: yes! But afterwards, my darling:
please get dressed.

Should I tell you what I wish
that I could give,
or you could grant?
I wish I could.
I can’t.


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