I don't want to be read to anymore--
     I want to be read next to.

I don't fall asleep unless I have
stories to pull around myself
like the blanket my mother knitted
from homemade soft pretzel twists
and edamame shells-- it's kaleidoscope 
like the fog we walk into each morning--
wipe from our thick eyeglasses--
I've only ever played with the 
world like a goldfish-- and no
one wants goldfish for pets
because all they can do is think about
the glass
and count the pebbles when there's no
one to look back to--
I don't want you to sit with me 
from the rocking chair. While I try
to sleep-- I don't want
you to make up words
to write in the flyleaf pages
of my hips-- I write on my own forearms
now and use my thumbs as erasers.
I don't want to hear how the words
taste in your mouth-- I want to lick
the rim of the last page
like an orange soda bottle
from a front porch swarmed with bees--
did we forget about the bees?
How could we forget the candles they
left us to remember his flesh 
and his flame? Those candles 
my father used to burn from the corners
of a bed room-- speaking Latin 
that neither of us understood.
Dear lover-- won't you read next to me?
It is all I've ever wanted to be 
brave enough to frame
each other like book ends-- no need to tell
me what your book is about-- I want
to read it from the curvature of your
back against mine-- 
lay yourself over me like
a book mark--
Oh Lover-- I am the dog-eared pages
your mother warned you about--
write this bed time story with me
and we can walk in the margins 
of each other's hips at night when
I touch you like a page turner--
like a page turn
like a page turn
like a pause--
re-read me.
turn me over like the last numbered 
page that you don't want to come--
Is it never an even number?
It it never an ending?
write "love" in the flyleaf-- don't you 
know that's what it was meant for?
And when we wake up I'll lite a candle
in the corner of the room-- I read
to you in the language of the bees
who drink only from
the lips of orange soda bottles.
And sometimes you make me feel
like we're not only goldfish
on the same shelf in different
bowls--I
feel like I know how many pebbles
are blue in the bottle of your tank.
I can never sleep until I've
counted every single pebble--
just let me know if you think of me
as your book end-- It's the only
way I can think to explain love.