Poem Written in a Carrell

Up late, reading, writing, a breeze

Rifles the pages of my books,

Sends my notes flying, my work,

My lifework, onto the floor. This nook,

This cranny where my eyes strain at

Lines of cramped type confines my soul

To teetering stacks of dusty

Volumes, my cracking skin the toll

I pay for caressing paper

Instead of flesh.

This mouth of mine

Is less for words than for kissing,

My hands less for scribbling of rhymes

Than for finding the body's own

Rhythm. But I have grown dry

like the pages of my books. What

Is all this struggling for, if I

Cannot be juicily human?

Copyright © 2005 by Christine Hoff Kraemer