The Novel You Should Have Read
After Jennifer Juneau’s “The Novel I Never Wrote”
This is for the novel you never read.
The novel that nearly pulled you in
though you barely skimmed its pages.
The shy novel. The bold novel.
The funny novel. The sexy novel.
The mystery novel.
The novel that made you smile.
The novel that made you laugh out loud.
The novel that made you sigh.
The novel that made you cry.
The rebound novel.
The love triangle novel.
The Forbidden Fruit novel.
The novel that intrigues you.
The novel that scares the hell out of you.
The novel whose kisses, had you so intoxicated
in a hole-in-the-wall piano bar in the
West Village.
The novel that haunts you like a ghost, with a host of what-ifs:
What if the novel had shown up at the reading that night?
And what if you had taken the time to read it?
The novel whose overwhelming passion made you feel something;
something you didn’t expect to feel; something you didn’t want to feel,
but you felt it anyway.
The novel your boyfriend forbade you to read because
he witnessed for himself, how you spiritually came to life
every time you read it.
The novel that aroused you.
The novel that challenged you.
The novel that enraged you.
The novel you betrayed and threw under the bus
The novel that made you blush.
The novel that made you wet.
The novel that made you so damn nervous,
butterflies danced in the pit of your stomach.
The novel you can’t stop thinking of.
The novel that can’t stop thinking of you.
The novel you surely would have loved.
The novel you never got to fuck.
Prince A. McNally is a widely published teaching poet and spoken word artist who facilitates workshops through schools and outreach programs, utilizing poetry and creative writing as a means of expression and self-discovery. His work has appeared in numerous literary publications and anthologies across the U.S.and abroad. He is a recipient of a Poets & Writers Grant. His work has been nominated for Best of The Net and the Pushcart Poetry Prize. Prince resides in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he’s currently working on his debut poetry collection poetry collection entitled SHE (A Celebration of Women).
The Marbled Sigh 