Listen!
WHEN I READ
I read to keep steady
I read to gain courage
I read because of my imperfections
I read when loss or fear threaten to overwhelm me
I read out loud I read silently I read without understanding
any of it
I read as a form of conversation with the dead or distant
when I read my boney hands become artful
like a surgeon's hands they penetrate to the heart of the
text and close the body up again
in my reading I am not faithless or changeable I am not on my
guard or hopeless
my legs are not necessary to my reading but they are there
too
in fact they may have gained more wisdom than my mind (see
where they have carried me) and more freedom than my
speech (they offend no one)
I read books newspapers magazines I read boxes menus directions
price tags I read free offers self justifications half
truths pleadings attacks confessions diaries
I read pages scraps bridges bathroom walls the bark of certain
trees dirty cars the steam on mirrors tattoos public
monuments
I read misdirected mail that comes my way with a thrill that
at last I will know someone else's truth
I read with my eyes I read with my tongue my ears fingers
forehead elbows knees
I read the axe's stroke with the back of my neck the epidemic
with my fevers famine with my hunger
my heart beats I read that my piss is discolored I read that
alone in bed I read the space next to me composed by many
others
dawn comes I read the sky seasons roll I read the cold and heat
I read with the face of a child hidden behind my face
I am with you now as you read this
we are at the edge of a forest where a plain of grasses
stretches to the horizon
a river runs nearby we hear its washing everything is breathing
we look in each other's eyes and see the reading no I mean
we read each other reading each other
when we touch skin reading skin our books fatten until
we are weary and collapse into sleep our dreams reading us
and what we know so well we have forgotten