one day you'll read the poem
i hid in the pages
of the book i bought you when you left for college
you got at book trader when you were sixteen
checked out from the library at school when you were ten
that i read to you when you were five
you'll see it clearly one day
the poem i picked out word by word
from the ones already there
remember how i touched them one at a time
as i read and wonder
how you overlooked the path of my fingerprints
highlighting the secret message
one day you’ll open the book
and the heat of the incandescent lamp
clipped to the headboard of your own child’s bed
will reveal what i could never say aloud
