Short Walk to the Bookstore

The winter wind whips and whisks
salt-harbor’s scent couples with the swirling snow.
The click-clack of the bridged Q-train track
above Brooklyn.
 
 
Red-capped kindergarteners caught in the chaos
of shuffling to back seats are blood drops on card stock.
This is the cold that makes smokers quit
for half-a-week.
 
 
A reader dives out of nature’s white machine-gunfire
into the trench of an indie poetry shop.
 
 
Warmth. Soothing quiet. They're moving slowly through the shelves.
Smell of paper, wood, old Folgers on a hot plate.
They walk home to a brownstone,
swaddled in words.
 
  1 2