Book Worm In Seal Skin

I'm a book worm in seal skin,
Gladys on the half shell,
exiting the surf wearing a long wool skirt,
a smart jacket,
librarian glasses,
and an antiquarian hat.

(I meant to trip in my high button shoes.
I meant to do that.)

So, now, come out from the stacks, you.
Bring me a rose
and state your business.

Yes, yes. I'm the most beautiful woman
that you've ever spotted behind a reference desk.
Your heart is mine,
to catalog and shelve,
and so forth and so on. I've heard it all before.

Do something different.
Throw your electronic gadgets in the trash.
Do an interpretive dance around the safety cones
which mark the wet spot on the floor.
Then,
lie down with me there,
play with my hair and read to me your own poem
about having to be lashed to the microfiche reader,
so that you won't throw your life away
for love of my song.

Wrap me in a net and slide the chopsticks from my head.
Check me out, Padawan.
Get lost in me, as in a book, or Old Briney.
If you whisper the correct call number, I will sigh
--in that way you just knew all librarians can sigh--
and stay seven years with you,
getting on top,
making spot-on recommendations,
and organizing your special collections like nobody ever has before.

Or, you can stand there gaping,
and I'll slide back into the surf as if I had never existed at all,
here and gone,
leaving just my hat ribbon floating in the foam.
_______