Library

I remember a girl, whispering
with menses, her breasts swelling

under a sweater.  She had just moved
upstairs from the children’s room.

The bindings were like rows
of bones to her.  She didn’t know yet

that she would suffer, or smoke
cigarettes forever, or that boys

would use her.  Only the books
mattered, as they would always

matter.  She sat at a table
for hours, cradling them, then

donned her pink poncho,
headed down the steps into

encroaching maturity,everything
palatable, then.



*Note: This poem originally appeared in The Candlelight Poetry Journal (print).