a good book

read illustrated shakespeare at almost the same breath as the comics.  snippets of greek mythology like fairy tales too.  they are among the many in the house of shelves.  many books has since followed long after the bobbsey twins and the hardy boys, and nancy drew who must be pretty but who never seems to grow old (the give away: how many cases could be had in a year?).  including what was once mistaken as must-be porn: the only forbidden books in the house.  these about men and women who arch their backs in throes (what are throes? and throes of passion? and what does this mean: to hold, to tighten, to gasp, to thrust?) 


to read 

is to suddenly have no body, no couch, no bed, no room

only mind, wandering, not lost, in somewhere they call clouds

where there is an old man, a big fish, and the sea.  a boy, a whitewash, a picket fence.  a tale, a revolution, a beheading of nobles, and two cities.  an escaped convict, and a guard.  a white fang.  a mockingbird, a house of the seven gables, a family stranded in an island, a man alone in an island, a story of a man who became buddha, and a man who became the greatest salesman in the world.

since then a longer string of names met while being without body.  names of people with birthdates and graves and histories of the real.

and in between, books of poetry.

to read

is to suddenly have no body, no couch, no bed, no room

only mind, wandering, not lost, in somewhere they call clouds.
 
and what did you get after all this reading? they ask, they who did not know
the art of disappearing.