I think of how much a book is like a body, the way
my fingers rest softly against the spine with your name
printed on it. How in x-rays our spines would have looked
like kindling rubbing together to make a spark. Right now,
reading you, we are between the covers again. Look
how close we are on bookshelves, the order of the alphabet
keeping us always within reach. Imagine us as our books,
titles tattooed down our centers. Tracing the raised welts
of new ink with our fingers, tongues. Everything about us
sad and beautiful, filled with longing and want. What once
was hardcover, hard-edged, now worn and soft,
but the story still the same as ever.
You are still every lost boy from your novels, aging
but never growing up, and I am the trope that keeps
trying to save them over and over. Somedays,
I wonder who wrote who into existence.
Shaindel Beers is the author of two full-length poetry collections, A Brief History of Time (2009) and The Children’s War and Other Poems (2013), both from Salt Publishing. She currently serves as English department chair at Blue Mountain Community College and as Poetry Editor for Contrary Magazine. Learn more at http://shaindelbeers.com.