Sunday, March 17, 2013

Tattered Stories




Bindings hang heads
weak with worry. Thread
 rots worn signatures who like 
the familiar neighborhood. Spines
find no sturdiness in molting cheesecloth
clinging like a hen's last determined feather
 or a shimmering snake skin discarded.
Still, the book magic strengthens 
the sentences and paragraphs,
and the pages and chapters 
hanging on for dear life  
to words inked.