What I'm Reading

I'm reading a book that's very unhealthy for me at the moment. It's entitled Almost French and it's a memoir about a young woman who takes a leave of absence from her job to travel for a year and ends up moving to France permanently to live with her new French love. Every dozen pages or so I have to remind myself that I don't want a French lover, that I have obligations to speak at some conference deal event thing in a few months, and that as far as I can tell, it's not possible to be a freelance librarian (but that would be spectacular) so I can't go traipsing off to Europe. Yet. All of this is to say that I have to get back to my book and can't post anything more interesting, but you can read this poem that I like. I like everything that has anything to do with librarians. And the words "bookish dark."

Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs bum like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

-Mark Strand