If you are a book worm—or one
of the slightly more advanced varieties:
e.g. book arthropod—you will note
the unnecessary presence of an umbrella
please look at how, as I emerge
from the library under threat of heavy
rain—though there are only
small, repetitious signs on the sidewalk now—
how I walk easily, as if I knew something:
This book is waterproof.
This book is not a tree. Please see
the author’s description for a full explanation.
But I can give you one word—the word of
the day: polymers. They are like flower
bulbs in the deep of night, when all
their hippie revelry fills the soil
with the rapture of sexual reproduction,
beside themselves, and then really—
beside themselves.
Three where there were two, but more efficient even
—though I hate to curse—
two for two, infinite replication.
Do not confuse with polyester. Or polytechnic.
When you are a grandparent you
will understand me—the way my shoes
are like paper boats, the day
before were paper hats, she said we’d
absorb the news through osmosis
the government stuff and the business stuff
and the bad people who were mean to
animals—we were pirates who became
captains in a boat that was really a tree
do you remember?
I walk down the stairs, out of the rain
that does not matter—are you
paying attention? do not mind that I fall.
No one is around, it hurts only a little
Are you watching how I walk?
A book worm’s tickly hop? A scratch at
the barley surface—tell me you understand
that it will not take two generations
Read::Zebra 
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