Night Custodian in a Library

I see you every night;
walk by you when vacuuming,
when I dust you off,
and clean the windows.
There is one light bulb
that shines on you.
I change it often
so it won’t burn out.
I think of you when
I’m not cleaning
as you sit on the shelf—
the book no one picks up.
Coming in on my day off
I find you, check you out,
take you home,
and begin you.
Lying in my bed,
I cuddle up with you.
Try to find meaning
between the covers.
Slowly your dust jacket
falls off, and is set
next to my lamp which,
like me, is turned on.
I start feeling your
leather-bound back
and your gold leaf title
hanging from your neck.
Your pages slowly
nuzzle up to my hands.
I begin to read you
and you begin
being read.
Your words are soft
flowing together.
You speak to me
in my language.
Turning pages faster
I find more.
I hear your
pages rustle.
your words like air
fill my lungs, flow
through me.
Giving everything,
I breathe deeper,
reading faster, almost
violently turning pages
with two hand and scanning
your words for more—more letters,
symbols, dots for i’s and exclamation points!
Moving slowly in and out of your o’s and a’s
and wrap myself around
your j’s and l’s grabbing your nouns and the
adjectives that describe them.
Your prepositional phrases pull me
closer while your commas suck my ear.
Your page numbers are warm and your
chapter headings are sweaty. I get lost in
your w’s and m’s, going back and forth
between arms and legs. I slide faster
again down the pages and paragraphs. I
want to read you every day,
maybe twice a day. I won’t take you
back to the library. You are the only
book on my shelf.
I buy bookends to hold you up when
I’m not reading you. I spend all day
everyday reading you sometimes. You
love your t’s being tickled by my tongue, or
your s’s swerving around my teeth.
Sometimes, I fall asleep with you on my
chest, or lying next to me, or your pages in my
in my hands.