The rota, which required junior library personnel
To alternate duties, assigned me to that dreary stairwell
Once a month; and there I would sit, arschhungrig, barring the way,
While going through readers' handbags on the green leather inlay
Of my desk, looking, supposedly, for a countdown timer
And wires, before gazing at the rear of each female climber
Of those stone steps. For one morning of one day, one week in four,
I would sit alone in the stairwell below the corridor
That led to the Reading Room; from below saw contours imply
How soft is the flesh beneath the eaves, the soffit of a thigh.