Yoni Freund

A Message to Those Beautiful Women Who Loiter the Library on a Hot Spring Day
By Yoni Freund

To the ladies of the library:
I’m asking you to breathe me
Inhale me from page to page—
You young maidens who all sit and wait
Holding a pencil
Wearing flip-flops
A sun dress—
Legs legs legs!!!
This is your moment to take a trip
You won’t soon forget.

All I’m asking is that you
Judge this book by its cover—
Take down my call number
Look me up in the search catalog
Check me out twice, or three times if need be
Don’t ever put me down
(I’m a bestseller you know.)
However, I dedicated this one just for you.

Sneak me to the beach with you, honey.
I’ll go softback, hardback, just don’t take me digitally—
I want you to memorize me line by line
Remember how you caressed my spine,
Tore me off the shelf,
Thumbed through my pages,
Knowing somehow deep down
That I was telling you everything you ever needed to know.

This ain’t fantasy, don't wake up—
Just keep reading between the lines—
This might not be happily ever after,
But you’ll soon hug me tight and swoon
Maybe cry a little and buckle at the knees
In a monsoon of longing and regret
When you reach those two climatic words—
The two words we all hurtle towards in life—
The two words that once read can’t be unread:

The End

 

Yoni Freund has a BA in Psychology from the University of Connecticut. He enjoys fortune cookie fortunes, tarot cards, and wisdom literature.