I know a girl who
owns an entire bookshelf of
poetry books,
but never reads them
for fear of mussing the pages
or staining the paper covers
with fingerprint oils:
a hoard of Cummings and Collins
and Plath and Bukowski,
Hughes and Williams and
Whitman and Blake lined up
like soldiers for a battle.

I watch her stare at them,
hungry,
a dragon at its hoard,
and retreat to my bent pages
and stained covers,
clutch Angelou and Dickinson
to my chest,
and dog-ear another corner
of another favorite poem.