The title poem

from Ernesto Priego's chapbook The Body Aches. Ernesto has occasionally done me the honour of re-posting some of my poems to his blog. Let me repay him by posting this wonderful poem.

The body aches

How difficult it is, the body tells you, to keep a promise:
To say, painlessly, j'accepte , and keep your word.

I mean the words in those books,
The lips imprinted in pale red, almost purple.

The first page that so quickly became the last,
Among us, what a title, you think now,

How come the book is still here, unread,
Waiting patiently for the ache to go away.

-Ernesto Priego