Bougainvilleas line the house, dedicated, stoic sentinels
Ivy has replaced mortar as the only thing keeping the walls from crumbling
The windows have no glass,
But the rain is kept at bay by the gossamer webs of kind spiders.
Inside there is no furniture – only paper tomes
She sits on a pile of high school textbooks
Her table, stacks of hard cover crime novels
Her bed, a nest of magazines
There is no fridge or pantry – she doesn’t eat
But she is not starving
She devours books, has become fat on them
A varied diet: science and science fiction,
Fantasy, history, politics, philosophy
And to nourish her soul – poetry.
She doesn’t remember her name
But it doesn’t matter
She is Beowulf, Boudicca, Odysseus
Dorian Grey, the Lady of Shallot,
She is both Hero and Leander
She never leaves,
But she knows that the world is turning
The sparrows in the gable tell her so
And she doesn’t need it, no
She smiles, cries, and falls in love over and over
With the turn of each page
Her fingers have transformed into ink stains
She has lived a thousand and one lives
She holds them all inside her
She makes them live, and they keep her alive -
This is a dream that I once had.