The bookstore lights were off.

Its window glass reflected red neon

from the theater marquee across the street.

If you peered inside,

if you shaded your eyes with your hands

you could see thousands of books

stacked and racked

their spines titillating to a man of words

as what’s under a skirt is to a man of perverse intention.

It brought me a strange sense of joy to imagine

the liminal space between the seen and unseen words

written on pages there in the dark

that can be anything you want them to be,

triggering the tingle-lust of a voyeur

who had found the perfect open curtain

and was now getting the eyeful he desired.