POEM: What The Kindle Cannot Do

is cuddle my pen, or splay violently onto
my living room floor, with textured pages
curled in all directions like morning hair,
it will never be as bedraggled as
a beggar, it cannot be an open palm,
asking for alms or be the leather smell
of wisdom or ever offer me a
spine to finger, a tab to yank on, tugged
from shrugged shoulders of oily wooden racks,
face smirking outward like an audience.
it cannot surround me, or remind me
that i am half army & half a monk.
it can never be the ligament of
wisdom’s muscles, for left on its own, words
just coagulate, glomming a body
to lean against. the growling CRT
paints evanescent reflections of green
sickly skin, but no analogues of flipping
pages or hi res simulations of
dog ears, nor the slick licking of electric
fingers into some form of pixelated
saliva cradles me the way books can.

Every book dreams of corporeal life.
The virtual (from the same Latin root
as virtuous, as in”strength”) offers weak
bonds between spiritual & convenient,
ignoring that Presence is another way
to know everything.