The Second Chance Bookstore

 

 

Charlie sits at the front counter

waiting for some one-day thief

to walk in and steal shelves filled

with musty books in a backpack or

shopping bag.

 

Yvette re-shelves tomes

instinctively knowing when Balzac

has found his way back to

the chimpanzees and moonwalks.

Today she fingers photographers,

pausing to study pages filled

with the faces of the dead.

Queens and princes of Harlem

dressed up and ready for their maker.

She is in awe of their quiet smiles,

then reminds herself that they are indeed dead

and purposely places them between

Heaven and Hell in the religious section.

Peeks over at me and whispers, “Don’t tell.”

 

The Art of Andrew Wyeth

cradled in the crook of my arm

weighs heavy when I remember that

I can no longer send it,

that my man has gone

and there is nothing,

not one thing,

that I can do to bring him home.

But I can’t bring myself to put the book down,

so I walk the floors carefully reading the titles.

 

The circus section has five books.

They are out of Simone de Beauvoir.

The biography of Ruth Brown is thick and well used.

 

Henry’s one job is to play the music.

Today he is all about jazz,

and I sway to the rhythms of Monk and Ella.

Henderson cries out with his sax a melody

that twists my grief into still lifes for the blind.

 

Then it is all about my vertigo.

It creeps from my knees to my belly

to my skin and the room does a pendulum dance

until I find a place on the warped floor boards

to rest my head.

There are spiders under Spinoza and they make me laugh

until Charlie’s size 14 black Nikes with Velcro

break my reverie.

Yvette brings water in a “life’s a beach” mug

while Henry puts on Clair de Lune, remembering

how I once mentioned that I love Debussy.

 

For them I lift my head

Yvette tells me to gather my book.

For them I lift my head.

“It’s on the house.”

For them I lift my head.

“Honey, look at me,

I’m gonna drive you home.”

For them I will lift my head.

 

I lean in to whisper to Yvette as we go.

Her soft hand on mine,

she leads me back to the corner section

where I leave Wyeth comfortable,

resting on God.