ENDLESSLY ROCKING

She treasures
the book.

It never leaves
her hands

leather bound

sweet & soft
as suede

She caresses

it
& it

caresses her

her fingertips
trace

the gold
embossed letters

LEAVES OF GRASS

she can’t
read

but has memorised

each line
each page
each word

knows how
& where

it all goes

learnt
by heart

amazing all the illiterate ears
that hear her

she amasses
all the voices

of anyone who ever
read it to her

as I read it
to her now

this
the gift

of a long ago love
(now long dead)    

who read it
to her first

a young woman
madly in love

unschooled in words
and flesh

being touched
with a passion

a naked
desire for words

being read to
by her first and only love

the words live
inside her

undaunted by old age

she sings
of her self

her lips
follow mine

line after line

and when I stop
she...

...continues on
and then

waits for my voice
to catch up

I follow after her
stumbling through the years

She strokes
the inscription

as if it were a person

kisses the letters
as if they were the lips
that first read to her

TO MY DEAREST EMILY
LOVE ALWAYS JOHN
1933.

“John...John...John! ”