Reading in bed

Bleeding was indecent,
too bloody, too wet, too red,
ill bred among the well fed
who did not take to vulgar displays
bespattering their mummified days.
We bled indoors through selected pores,
and learned that walls have ears.
Father said so, day after day,
“Walls betray, give secrets away.”
Yet weeks into years we were off to bed
and allowed to read the awful unsaid,
to wallow in texts of blood and gore
if we never spilled or stained a floor.
We held our peace, kept to the rules,
stayed within lines, finished schools,
and never forgot, “Save your face:
Do not cry in the marketplace.
If a killing is done, just carry on.
Life’s not for fun. Rivers run red?
Not your concern. Secrets to bed.
You’ll learn. You’ll learn.” We did.
How to hide, say close to nothing,
and wear our best false faces,
but, free to read, we read in bed.
If breathing seemed the sin of living,
and indecent bleeding was forbidden,
reading stood the charade on its head.
Reading, we slowly became undead,
ripened as green fruit turning red
in debt to the gift of books in bed,
treasures that tons of reading bred.
Summing our saga as words allow:
Hearts are the beating drums of Tao.