Books

a poem by Roger B Rueda

You are thin, and flat, from crushed copses.
I am keen on your texts, textures,
and concentrates
of colours, most often black.
No, best friends, you are magical pieces,
thought up to share
our souls, which you
don’t swank about.
I am beginning, up till now though,
not to feel certain
about you, what
you really are.
Are you like us, endless
and immense?
You, in your classic form,
create a touchable sense
of realism that I find
nowhere else. As I
put down your part way through,
even if one of you was in black
and white years ago,
and thousands buried
themselves in you
earlier than I first did, it is
as if the world
were overhanging and passing the time
for me to return.
You look as if shapeshifters
as time looks the other way.
Is it really you I’ve come upon?
A very delicate looking woman,
her face was a little pallid,
her nose a little hooked,
her brown eyes awfully welcoming,
I could not suppose her age,
the eyes looked sensible
and so seemed
to be aged but the rest
of her face was seemingly
much younger.
In her hands, was it you she had?
Slender, black, and
which she held up like
she was burying herself in what was
on one side,
leaving the black exterior
to my sight?
She, she said, could carry hundreds
of you that way,
since she was your fanatic lover.
Have you been reborn there?
As you pity those
who you are too heavy for to carry?
I know your smell,
your magic, your power.
I love your feel against
my skin, you are thin, and flat,
from crushed copses.
No? Best friends,
you’ll transform yourselves
into virtual beings
but you, as decent as you are
in my hands, will beat
staring into the future form
of you hands down.
You’ll stumble
on new friends for your reinvention one day.