The Book of Impotence

 Is this a book exhausted from too much reading?
Or too little reading?

From the hairs on the head to the end of the toe-nails
- the pages are marked with the stains of use.
Or miss-use,
Better that the words had been read off the page.
Do the words still signify?
Is there still a space between chapters or have all matters blurred?

In this book the index of entries is longer than the book itself.
This life has so many footnotes it ought to be all flatfeet,
It's soul layered deep in calloused blisters and corns.

The major sweep of this books living is too often marred by qualifying.
It is hedged about with ifs and buts, and if onlys, and howevers,
Excuses for a life that is about to shut its covers for the last time
And then crumple into dust in an unseen
And never-to-be-remembered library.

(The Pillow Book)