Bibliobliss

When you open a book,
you open my life
or at least my breath
which seems to be lifting
my lungs up and back
in their timeless sea rhythm,
and I must be reacting
more obviously, breathing
a little too hard. Maybe
the sound of my breath
is catching yours or maybe
it's my chest moving more
apparently,

but I can't get the feeling
under control because
your voice is shaping words
in quiet rumbles with soft
precise authority
such that each syllable
vibrates your baritone
a little, and I almost feel
the mattress shake ever
so slightly, but it could
be that I just trembled
and a tiny quiver escaped
at the way your lips move,
open then shut and how
you hold the book
in your hands.

In any case you noticed
because you laugh gently
and skim the pages on me,
flicking them over my tummy
in a shuffle, covering me
with poetry and then
with you and a smiling
question

Oh you like being read
to, do you?

It's like striking a match,
and we press the words
between us like flowers