you read faulkner and it turns my stomach.

but i like when i find you devouring my books--

i liked the time i found you curled up with my copy of the poisonwood bible
and you stuttered apologies for the marked and highlighted pages,
for the notes in the margins,
as you explained you had become engrossed in the story
and forgot it wasn’t your own copy after all.

i like when you talk about barthes and foucault
and try on literary theory like glasses:
horn-rimmed new criticism,
nice round reader-response theory.

i like when you touch me
as if i were the delicate curve of sylvia plath’s bell jar,
as if you know that i am at once suffocating under pressure and
suffocating myself,
as if you know that all i need sometimes
is the singing of your fingers on the glass
to give me harmony
and air.

i like when you pick up the poetry collection i bought at the bookstore down the street
and translate marina tsvetaeva's verse back to its original tongue.

and you never say it in english, but я люблю тебя
has crossed your lips, dangerously,
before you started teaching me russian,
before you found out I knew enough of the language
to translate
that.