storytellers

Now, on a worn couch, I am reading aloud to a friend:
my favorite poems, a passage from Anna Karenina,
a collection of short stories from Southern writers.

She pours hot water onto tea leaves in our mugs.
The steam rises over her face. This was
how I spent my childhood.

Listening. Reading. Words like
drops of amber, like growing pearls, like wet clay.
On the table of my elementary school library:

glazed pastries and green tea,
word games, lessons in character voices.
My mother reads to her tired father

and he laughs, then catches his breath.
A poet smiles at her husband in the audience,
reading a love poem to a crowd.

If you were deaf, I would read to you with
my hands in your hands.
Words outloud, words we feel.

My friend finds a bookmarked page,
says to me that this is her favorite part of the book,
the part where Tereza dreams.

When I was a child, my father read me
the best of 20th century sci-fi; I closed my eyes.
I went flying into space.

A mother reads to her son
to chase away the nightmares; she keeps reading
even after he has fallen asleep, just in case.

These words are not mine

but I’d like to share them anyway.