Not the dime-a-dozen love-novel found in a cheap
kiosk
But a hard-back
Lush photography
Words that fly from page to mouth to groin
Singing of slick papaya-skin
Thick-sweet flesh
Round black seeds rolling in a hollowed womb
A rare find for an old bookstore
The price marked down to nothing
The pages yellowed, brittle
But intact
Like an aging woman,
The hair gone gray, but still beautiful
It’s one you can’t put down
a classic, timeless
One Joyce could have written, or Tolstoy
But foreign, exotic
You stay up all night reading
Wet dreams in the morning
You think you’ll hide it, spine to the wall
In the farthest corner of your dustiest shelf
You think you’ll read it again
Just once more
Or try to sell it back
But it’s just like a man
It stays with you for thirty years or more
Even when you forgot where you put it
It comes back to haunt you
Not the dime-a-dozen love-novel found in a cheap kiosk
But a hard-back
Lush photography
Round black seeds rolling in a hollowed womb
