Her body, any body, you tell yourself,
Never as good as words, never as nuanced
As the sounds arising off the skin of page

And your finger tracing the text,
Much better than the tip of your
Tongue across the ridges of her
Soft flowered ears

Yes, text rolls much superior to
Her hand massaging your foot’s insole,
Much better than your nose drifting through
Her long and sumptuous hair

You know the feel of her spine
No way competes with the flexing
Spine of a book

There are no sounds to her lovely lashes,
No off rhymes off the blue of her eyes

There are never tears, never the constant why whys
When you turn on the light in bed with a book

But stop now and demand of yourself that
You put aside your fears, your rationalizing.
You know how the pain of her makes you say
Unending garbage of stupid things

You know in the deep of all your aches
That no printed book has ever
Moved and sighed like the liquefaction
Of her sweet and shining words