I browse book covers
stacked on my bedside table,
flip through travel guides,
a collection of poems.

Absorbed in a novel
I become black on white,
twenty-six letters,
the space between lines.

I feel your fingers
run down my spine,
your palm flat on my back.
You hold me close, take me
with warm, strong hands –
open me up.

Read me, I say.
Read me slowly, page by page,
one word at a time.

 © Susan Constable
Tower Poetry, Vol. 55, No. 2, Winter Edition 2006-7

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