I Bought A Book Of Poetry Today

I bought a book of poetry today.
Cost a week's wage.
I shouldn't have bought it,
But the words called to me.

I could hear the book's voice clearly.
Even though its pages were tightly pressed,
Bound in transparent plastic shroud.
I suppose I hear it alone. Dead ears all around me.

At the counter I'm asked: "Are you buying the book for a class?"
"No, I just don't want to wake up tomorrow and find my life inconvienent]ly devoid of meaning."
No Mike, remember the Lithium?
"Uh, no. I just like poetry." My lips flap around the boring tongue.

The shroud's gone, and the book breathes again.
I can't wait, and break into the words on the train.
Of course, I open to Dylan Thomas first. He wrote "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower." At 20.
Science. A good choice for a former poet me, eh?

Home now, I take my work, those unwieldy pages,
And iron the crinkles out of the clear plastic.
I wrap my portfolio in the veil,
Seal it with spit and crazy glue.

But my words, they're clever bastards. They break free.
Build a scafollding; tie a hangman's noose. Crying:
"At twenty. At twenty!"
I bought a book of poetry today.