Page one forty-seven, that’s where the bookmark’s been since the end of summer,
the book and I have been in this extended mutual bummer
of the nightstand and the never-quite — I pick it up two nights a week,
read four pages and lose the thread before I’m fully asleep.
The book is good, I need that said before we go any further —
the book deserves better than this year-long in-between, the murk of
my reading pace and the four competing books on the nightstand tower,
all of them mid-chapter, all of them waiting for the hour.
Page one forty-seven, the long-term correspondence,
page one forty-seven, still in contact, still responsive —
I’m not abandoning it, I’m pacing, which is different,
page one forty-seven, still in the building, still sufficient.
I started strong, the first fifty in a single sustained sitting,
the spine cracked and the investment was entirely fitting —
and then the pace degraded somewhere in the early fall rotation
and one forty-seven became the permanent location.
I’ll close the thing before the year runs out its final quarter,
I’ll take a weekend and read back from one hundred in the proper order —
page one forty-seven, I’m coming back, I mean it when I swear it —
the bookmark’s right there and the book deserves to hear it.