Shelf Life

A poem.

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.
– Todd Outcalt

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