Why did you come, exactly, to sit beside me in my reading room?
to commandeered my precious, dust-edged volumes,
with the oily boot-trails of your fingertips?
In one gold-button moment, you annex Worlds
as if they’re stamped with mortgages and wax;
but those are veins you coil up, pack away,
those flags are memories you burn.

Did you know this when you entered, that you would erase me?
Could you accept it so lightly, my ink on your hands?
Your ruddy cheeks spoke pinkly of kindness,
and from my blue chair, you smiled vanilla: all eyes and no teeth.
Now I watch mute, behind walls of your language
as your hands, like peach bats, suck and fly.
My spine hears you digging your trenches,
paving everything over with the easy sludge
of New Ideas.