Paperback Woman Poem by Gordon R Menzies

She ensures her cover is always new
glossy, eye catching and ever changing
flashy title rewritten in gold or silver script
entirely new genres on occasion
she made love to coffee once, but
now she cannot bear the scent
inside and behind, if she doesn't like
a scene, she tears out the pages
a maenad rending her own flesh
ragged remnants remain at the seams
and some of the stains leave
lingering watermarks on
the balance of blank waiting pages
in recognizable shapes and memory
things she's done and can't abide
are torn from her story, and she
and her readers pretend, loyally
but with secret sneers of disdain, that
those passages never really were
though the watermarks remain, and
the pristine paragraphs selected
for broadcast, are clean but disjointed
the story falls short, and her book
is thinning, thinning with the years
and the storylines narrow
become predictable, uninteresting
her readers fall away one by one
and even her cover is
dog-eared, and destined for dust