*in response to my n'th reading of The Book Thief by Mark Zusak*

It's 11am and 257 pages

The words have rinsed over my beaten and bruised soul

as the rain.

Constant and in giant gentle drops I search for the rain during the night.

I'd forgotten that Leisel too reads

to break apart the nightmares

I collect the rain water in my lap

And the ways of the washing of these words gives pause

To place the book aside and pour the sum of words over me, repeatedly until I am clean.

Chipped, no shattered, I am clean.

And now my words rise from the belly of my pen

And stumble cautiously, clumsily to the page

And are triumphant.