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Book Story

Beth Cato
Poetry
Fantasy

she breathed in books
musty and rich with emotion and memory
old leather covers soaked in the most
the whorls of fingerprints and expectations
pages dog-eared by tension
the warm glow of gas-lit lamps still absorbed
by the brittle pages
yet library books held a particular fondness for her
the ones re-bound in those garish 1950s colors
a burst of geometric shapes on the cover
those books held thousands of impressions
the calm reserve of businessmen, the desperate escapism
of restless housewives
reading these books meant delving through layers
just as with an onion, only more tears
carbon-dating a memory by touch, she brushed against
the delight of a six-year-old reading by himself
for the very first time
the hardcover clutched the echo of halting words read aloud
the pride in his voice, that satisfaction
and that was why she favored the children's section
dragging her fingers against those nubby spines
inhaling the magic of innocence and the awareness
of eyes newly opened to the blossoming of words

                                                                      


 

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Copyright 2012, Beth Cato. All rights reserved.

Beth Cato's poetry can be found in The Christian Science Monitor, Niteblade Fantasy & Horror Magazine, and on various pieces of paper crammed into her purse. She lives in Arizona, but is from Hanford, California. Her website is http://www.bethcato.com.

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