My secret sisters

Novel
I pick you up
you smell
of library dust and other
women’s breath.
So many have slept with you
before me
taken you to dinner
bathed with you.
It’s my turn now
a three-week affair
we’ll laugh
perhaps you’ll shock me
you’ll make me cry
in the end.
I miss the old library cards
tucked inside you
each name carefully printed
in pencil.
Not a record of
my rivals
these are the names
of my secret sisters
an unbroken
line of hungry vessels
you open up
one after the other
and fill.