DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER
is bullshit. Everything opens. Each word
proclaiming pick me, pick me. I once paid
a cover charge, woke up to a poet unsticking
my shirt from my newly adult body. He lived
in an attic at the end of a long, dark hallway.
I found the bathroom spotted in moonlight.
I saw the unused condom in the trashcan.
Mermaids with knives in their feet, every
step shot pain from toes to eyes. I fell in
love with his nightstand, a stack of spines.
Have you ever been ripped open?
Now I stock my shelves with stalwart tomes,
whispering not every writer is a narcissist.
Sebastian Subir is a writer based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. His work has appeared in River Heron Review.