The Library
by Bertha Isabel CrombetThe library smells like you,
like your clothes, like your bed and whole home—
old, deep, well-lived— and for a moment,
I am inside you as I am inside it.
How peripatetic!
Me inside you, taking the shape and name
of all your stunning viscera,
the spines of the books gleaming
like slippery spleens, empurpled and intimate.
I’d travel the length of your flank,
and settle in some fertile hollow between the ribs,
only to be created again from the fine bone, begotten,
this time better, more curious, more agile, even,
as I climbed through your eyes,
green and gray
like jade that has been splintered by lightning,
and finally up to your succulent brain, nibbling
on tangy morsels of memory,
feasting on them like a corpulent king,
your greasy dreams dripping down to my elbows.
Hungry— hungry— greedy—greedy!
Satisfied, I’d spelunk down to the middle of your middle,
right between those two great pink shelves of breath,
and ride the exhale out of you
like a skilled almond-skinned surfer.
Wouldn’t you like to hear my report,
how I swallowed to learn you before I knew you?
Wouldn’t you like me to tell you everything?