Submitted By: Kifayah Abdul-Quadri

In the beginning
I judged a book by its skin
Its quiet and reserved hardback
It's probably dry and boring
I told myself

But with my first glimpse
Through its pages
It became the spell-bound best-seller
I could not put down
Full of an aura of rhetoric and mystery
With a plot likened to the compass of a ship.

In my suspense came the climax
Then, I found my estimation wrong
I could have been a better
And more expensive archaeologist
If I had waited a century more.

© Kifayah Abdul-Quadri, 2002