Book Lovers

For years my wife has accused me of loving my library more than her.  But that's absurd.  Books can't bake a cake, scrub a sink, or clean a grease trap.  Books are inanimate objects, incapable of feeling, lifeless.  A wife, on the other hand, can be full of life when she's not exhausted, and sometimes she is capable of expressing her feelings.  Anger and disgust come to mind . . . but she is also capable of feeling frustration, impatience, and paranoia.  

Well, you see the difference.  A wife is just so much better than a book, and sometimes she let's me turn her pages.

However, in all fairness to myself (and to her), I've still got the hots for this 28-anniversary cutie.  And, if not the hots, at least a sizeable crush.  What a broad!

Sure, there are those people who find me to be misogynistic and chauvinistic, but these are just the people who know me--like family members and such.  My mother has this opinion of me, too, but what does she know?  

Interestingly enough, I actually find the time to write a fair amount of love poetry, and sometimes editors actually pay me for it!  I'm talking actual cash, folks.  With coinage and everything.

And when I write love poems, I'm thinking of my wife.  I usually picture her in various stages of undress (which is rare) and try to imagine what I would say to her if I were drunk (which I have never been).  The result is usually fantastic and I've had other women tell me how my love poems have changed their lives . . . making them realize how fortunate they are not to be married to me, for example.  I admit that I would hate to be married to me, too, and then turn around and write another poem to my imaginary wife.

At any rate, here's a poem that was published in the January 23, 2012 edition of The Christian Science Monitor.  (I think my wife actually read this one and liked it.  She may have actually thanked me.  Several times.)

I'll offer it here again to Becky with all my love on our 28th wedding anniversary, which is now past due.

Shelf Life

I can read you like a book:
Your loved and lovely lines
Your well-thumbed pages
Your knowing-look
The shape of your spine.
And I have read you in such times
When light was dim
And hope absurd
Knowing I could turn your page
Beginning to end
And read word by word
What I could not gauge
Nor comprehend.