Shelved Intimacy

All along each deck of my skeleton,

each ridge of my spine,

an author left its prose, 

be it parceled, be it whole,

be it first drafts and severed form.

The bookshelf that is my personhood, 

ribcage belonging to centuries like the old oak.

My bones adorned with stories, shelved with saga,

and my marrow painted with metaphor 

for grief and heroes’ journeys 

incomplete.

The sturdy frame, belonging to me and carved by names 

I’ve known, I’ve loved, I’ve memorized,

that urges me to stand.

I leave my carcass out whole. The world stares

at the titles written on all of these book spines, 

each housing printed word, all too real and scathing

as if these memories are my organs I left hanging out in the open,

that these books are the tissue that fills 

my skeleton of a wooden case brimmed with language,

almost delightfully, almost poetically

in this body, open selection of knowledge, of storied mistakes, for the gods.

In this bookshelf that is my cartilage, my filament, my collagen, my keratin,

identity lays itself bare in old pages, mucked with dust and crinkled corners,

foldable maps and line cook paychecks tucked into the book jacket

that smell of old vinegar and redwood and Tiger Balm and white hairs.

Identity kisses shyly in new pages, too, smooth to the touch and mind,

before meeting new fingertips like in a curtsey of a shy girl.

Part of me are the books I wish to read, but never do,

because starting them commits me to too much,

too real, too close to being seen.

There are those books with the pretty covers,

ones I say that I’ve read, but haven’t, and probably never will,

because sometimes lying about the soul’s cravings

keeps the heart beating.

The books I visit over and over again, 

with the well-admired grainy texture of the paper and

the spines bent out of place and wrinkles in the colors exposing white,

in which I find new meaning each time,

a tale that never ceases its teachings.

There are books gifted to me, and

among them are the ones I have read front to back and have loved,

among them are the ones that grew obsolete, unopened,

as people love as much as people leave.

In my ribcage that houses my heart,

there lives drama, and romance, and tragedy,

there lives comedic relief,

biography needed for autobiography.

Look into this shelf,

my skeleton slabbed with pages and souls that know words

or the feeling of them,

so I mean the whole wide world that can dance between the space made by two covers.

My soul, my being, finds itself in a display of language,

cold and dry to the touch.