words

she turns each page with a care
reserved for newborn mothers,
never bending the corners to mark her place,
never dodging that without meaning
or stopping short of knowing the fates
of those paper worlds,
digging past the surface
clear through to the other side
without so much as pausing for breath
or some lesser necessity,
she must know the end
once she has been to the beginning.

her skin softer than pale shades
of lamp light in the evening regress,
her hair a river without source
or destination but of itself,
she is a story i could never compose,
for it’s far too beautiful
to see myself in those pages.

-S.C. Martinez