Curatrix For Budding Chaucerphiles

Curatrix For Budding Chaucerphiles    
   
     She dusts books with her burning hair. Her flaming tresses brush the words of the opened pages of ‘Canterbury Tales’ licked by her locks. She kisses due date cards for boys desirous of her lipstick strawberries.    
     “Ms. Rowena, doesn’t your hair collect dust from brushing those old books?”  
     “It is my way of worshipping the authors. I think they would be honored.”  
     “If you say so. But I doubt making your hair into a dust broom crossed their mind as adulation.”  
     “They would be tickled pink at the prospect of a librarian giving their books her personal touch.”  
     “You know Ms. Rowena your lipstick prints on the due date cards do appeal to my logic. And it definitely adds an intimate touch to my library experience. But what gave you the idea?”  
     “It is Valentine’s Day every day. Isn’t that enough of a reason?”  
     “Well, I guess. It does add that dimension. You really are onto something. And it is an incentive to keep checking out books and reading them.”  
     “You have an inquiring mind. And your interest in my feminine ways appeals to me. So keep asking those questions and I will have answers to feed your budding masculinity.”  
     She presides over the school’s book room like Helen of Troy in horn-rimmed glasses who peruses a practicum on literature in her six-inch stilettos wearing a clingy evening gown. She puzzles over the inordinate amount of reference inquiries from the boys but chalks it off to the curiosity of budding scholars. Yet so many questions on Shakespearean double entendres which make her gasp.  
     “Ms. Rowena, you are blushing. Am I embarrassing you?”  
     “Not at all. Your passion for learning is a good thing. I must confess the hidden meanings that fascinate you are a bit risqué. But I am the woman for the job. Keep asking.”    
     The Queen of pentacles sends her fiery gaze across the pages of Ovid’s Amores that take her into the heart of love where reside strange desires that stir her heart in the lonely hours when a boy sits reading Chaucer only to ask her, “Ms. Rowena what does he mean when the Wife of Bath says ‘And yet in bacon hadde I nevere delit,’?  
     “Oh dear one he means the bacon at the grocery store past its expiration date.”  
     “Did they have grocery stores with expiration dates back then? And why does she go on to say, ‘And trewely, as myne housbondes tolde me, I hadde the best quonyam myghte be.’?”  
     “She is referring to the yam she grew in her garden that won a blue ribbon at the county fair.”  
     She ponders the wisdom of putting this book on the reading list. Soon the lads submit essays on Chaucerian lessons about how to please their women in bed that make her gasp at what this so called classic teaches beyond the obvious old English language. Yet their fixation on her bonfire lipstick tells her of their need to know the sensual side of romance.  
     “I hope my book report wasn’t swoon material for you. But it was written with you in mind.”  
     “Please don’t say that. I would never incite a pupil to arouse his librarian. My intention is to introduce you to literature that may not be on most library bookshelves. But if you must get all excited by your books surely there can be no harm in new ideas.”  
     “The fresh ideas are delicious as ice cream.”  
     “Maybe I should hand out sundaes as a reward for good reviews. With a cherry on top. Does that suit your literary tastes?”  
     “Well, as long as you keep up your sugar kisses on the due date cards I will be a happy boy.”  
     Her derriere is his domain when peepers earn the prize of her sweet bottom warming him as deserved by his prying spies. His in flagrante delicto gaze sparks her imagination while her lipstick embers incinerate the hemp that binds a lad to innocence.  
     “Hey Ms. Rowena, I notice you’ve changed the book reports for the extra credit reading list. Notably, you’ve added a couple of women whom I’d never heard of. These are Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein. I browsed them and they aren’t nearly as interesting as the spicy parts of ‘Canterbury Tales’. Why the change?”  
     “I thought you all needed an understanding of gender not so focused on the risqué. Trust me there is more to gender than the ribald and your future spouse will thank me for introducing you to non-traditional gender roles.”        
     “Will you blacklist my favorite books?”  
   “Of course not. They are your bedside companions. How could I take them away?”    
     “You cast out the censor spirits.”  
    “I’d burn my bra but never books. Besides, the inked characters on paper will follow you into your dreams where first love blossoms.”