“Do that somewhere else,”

            said the prune lipped

                        banana nosed

                        apricot eared

                        tomato headed high school librarian

when she caught me lingering over Brave New World

So many places to stop

            squeeze the covers

            sniff the ends

            look for brown spots

            cobwebs and signs of spoilage

Delicious and ripe fruits

So close to my nose and near sighted eyes

It was her mission to keep me away from tantalizing words

            revolutionary black marks on onion white pages

            and artichokian abstractions

I plucked the pages, grape by grape, illegally

            and popped them into my mouth

            hiding behind the stacks of fresh and purple prose

When she turned to restack the encyclopedia display

            I dashed out the back door

            Dickinson and Twain in hand

            dropping strawberry stems as I fled