Reading Under Porch Lights
A Poem About the One Constant…
It’s finally cool- a break from a 90+ degree day:
8:00 finds me on the porch of the White Hall apartment.
Paperback book, Devil’s Ink, opened to the halfway point.
There has always been a love for reading in the evening
especially under unnatural light, that reminds me of:
childhood- Sweet Valley High under car and streetlights.
middle school- Four Past Midnight using a flashlight under cover.
high school- You Can Make a Difference by the setting sun.
college- 1984 under the lights of the campus library porch lights.
I light a cigarette slowly, forbidding the ash to land on pages.
After all these years, I still prefer the feel of a physical book
instead of a Kindle- though mom spent decent money on tablet.
Commit to reading for an hour under the apartment lights-
drinking Vanilla Coke by the bottle and turning pages quickly.
I remember slightly a question: what did your 10 year old self love?
I can attest that a lot of things that I loved in my teens
is still close to me- not everything- but the basics of love for written word.
