By Madison
Date: 29 April 1999

Bookstore

Stooping
my two knees beg landing
to the bottom shelf
of three
glidance past the pop
pop knuckle crack of 
nearby college sweats
plunged  

in a chair gone to seed 
greasy graveyard shifts of arms
circled four by
four in a 
space of grey 
I sink toward the floor
in my white knit skirt

artfully slit 
and flirting 
across the new chemise
you would pore 
over me
over me
it murmured between the teeth
 
bending for a bounded book 
my fingerprinted hands 
trace its heavy coat 
its scruffy weekend jaw 
not slick fast men with neoprene eyes 
lipserving sanctimoniously  
but real

as winter bumps 
on your back in November 
a page of ecru textile 
paper thick clearly black with words
solid shapes of words to anchor
scraping words
that plop onto the scale

like a fish
flapping in this store 
kicking through colors of  
brave new me
as you spy
as you sit on this bottom shelf
and follow me back to this room

in my house
on my page of clearly black words
of me without
you
would pore
over me
over me.




M Madison
29 apr 99