The Bookworm

My friend sends me words I cannot be.
She offers them in fat envelopes with instructions
and numbers them backward.
The rules for the things you can say are
on the second page.
There is nothing on the second page.

When I start from the beginning with her,
it's in the middle of a sentence and all
her letters are birds.
The good words will fly off the page for you.
She tells me this in a curly script with
her words dancing on the edge of a ribbon.

I am reading about magic, she tells me.
All the forest moves through our fingers
and breathes life inside the trees.
They are deep with sorrel, clover, mistletoe, and
if you wait long enough,
the bee orchids will trick you into loving all the wrong things.