using Byron and Shelley
to hold her up for leg leverage,
being quiet but loud enough
to risk the danger of being "caught"
by the librarian whose sciences
will ask us to leave,
but whose jealousy will be felt.
that is the thrill,
and the stacks of books bear witness;
the flickering lightbulb in the back,
an old USA Today and a UCLA shirt
are treasured proof of the tryst,
which will be planned
but pretended to be spontaneous,
fulfilling two of our literary fantasies.
she will get to fuck a dead poet,
and I get to dust off the bucketlist
in romantic style, while ghosts snicker,
and all of us will write about it
from differing points of view,
used to pull life out of making love
in brick-built backrooms of reading,
the smells of which we will always remember.