‘Like a Book’: A Spenserian Sonnet by Jeffrey Essmann

Like a Book

He reads me like a book, the One Who wrote
Me; knows, it seems, each page of me by heart
And can to my chagrin succinctly quote
Each savory (and somewhat less so) part.
His first draft was, of course, a work of art,
But soon enough my rewrites did by fits
And starts so far from the original depart
It stuns me that He didn’t call it quits.
Instead He kindly skims the boring bits
(The sinful bits); just sighs and turns the page;
He’s read it all before, the counterfeits
By which we from His tale can disengage.
Yet in His mercy, surely by His grace:
His early notes He still can clearly trace.

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.