Unread

Sadly sitting near a Bible
Waiting for someone...
Anyone, to read me.
Dishonored by aging
Pages once pristine
Now show yellowing.
Untorn, unsought
Unremembered.
Until a toddler came
He picked me up
Gazing at me with awe.
Then opened my cover
Sticking his sucker there!
It wasn't a flavor I cared for.

Years spent with a sucker
Until one day a young man came
He remembered me!
And as if reclaiming his sucker
He picked me up with glee
Then he tore the aged sucker
From my papered breast!
The result was a horrific tear.
Oh, the pain of it all.
Now, further dishonor
The shame of the unread.

Years came for the book burnings
I was sure I would go next.
The new mistress of the house
Came and picked me up
Looking inside my cover,
She gasped.
"Honey!" she cried, "Look!"
Her honey came over
The toddler, the young man
I shuddered to see what...
I cringed...
"Someone tore a page!"
He looked a bit sheepish
I know, he sadly reported.
"I did."

"You?!"
"Yes."
"But you love books!"
"I know, I was only two then."
"Oh..." she replied.
"That was when I suckered it!"
"Suckered?"
"Yep," he smiled, "Sticky and red!"
"Oh, no."

He took me into his big hands
Fondly he turned the pages
Reading finally his story
The story of a mother's love
As she left the only thing she had
Her written prose.
He wept as he read her inscription.
"To my son, always remember..."

Tears clouded his eyes as he sat
He still held me.
He held me for hours that day.
Finishing the tale of a magic pony
A  pony that his mother became
In order to be close to her only son.
The love poured from yellowed pages
He finished the story finally
And held me close to his breast.
"Oh, mom. Mom."

He reads me annually now
Sharing his world, his thoughts
As he reads over and over
The story of the Magic Pony
And the victory over death
As his mother lives again
Between my aging covers!
No, they never burned me!