Between the Sheets

Between The Sheets


I confess,
to sleeping with books,
covers spread open and waiting -
they beckon,
a fluttering of leaves
like lapping tongues.
Oh, their smooth embossed spines.

The tawdry ones are good for a night.
Rumpled, smelling of smoke,
usually borrowed and broken.
They're anybody's book,
sorry, sticky maybe,
used and returned.

The worldly wise leave an exotic taste,
others have the common language
of guttersnipes but
provide good tale.
Some disappoint -
summer flings, read
and dismissed,
important as the sand
shaken from my shoe.

I can't help but embrace them all,
stroking the ones I love,
smelling their words.
After a good read, I'm bushed.
Lying across my chest,
the latest listens to my heartbeat
while I take in what else it says.


Ellen Wade Beals