Bookmarks

This sentence was diagrammed 35 years ago,
the verbs and adjectives sequestered,
the pronouns identified; the subject, you.
This was the first sentence of the novel that
had yet to be written. Really, many stories
followed, some worth reading more than others.


Yours earned the coffee stains, the
dog-eared pages, the notes scrawled
in the margins. Yours was the one
donated to the used bookstore
for someone else to read lovingly.


—Martin A. Bartels