John Martin

laughing through grad school
learn
(academic stuff)
live
(hints of life beyond
school and work)
camp
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blog
(observations)
©1999-2008 John Martin. Updated: March 2, 2007
Night Reading
 
In the glow of a straddling lamp,
I watch gray shadowed walls
melt from the bed and meet windows
like mirrors or dark eyes that hold
 
the reflection of two night readers.
echoing in the thermal pane.
They recline, glazed and insulated,
disguised in goose down. Are we
 
as fragile as this? I wonder, staring
as your image turns pages like hours.
Your toes graze my calves like ice,
instinctively under covers.
 
When the chapter ends, you close
the book and rest your eyes in the glass
of my gaze, then turn a dark cheek toward
me with a question of bed. Your face
 
distorts in reverse. Perspective is skewed
in windows, but when you lean to kiss,
I see you bend glass as strong as words
that shatter in the focus of lips.
 

-john martin 1997