The Bookshop

The Bean Cycle Coffee Shop,

And Wolverine Farm bookstore 

Fort Collins, CO. 

Is the most perfect of coffee/book shops

Comfy couches

Walls lined with second-hand books 

And poems 

And artworks of local artists

The smell of coffee and old books 

Handmade signs

Everything a little dusty

The old bicycle on the wall

Music plays

Audible enough to create a vibe

Chill enough to allow conversation

And reading

People sit 

Sipping coffee 

Absorbing in other worlds

Through words and print on paper 

Type away on laptops 

Face each other 

Over round tables

Conversation 

A background hum 

The kids’ corner 

Tucked away

The rocking chair and teddy bear and doll 

Mom reading to her daughter

You are welcome to sit

And read

And browse 

And drink coffee 

Small children clamber up the stairs to the loft

They turn their heads

Grin the through the railing with cheeky smiles

The clanky old register 

Books to be priced, stacked, and shelved 

I can’t even begin to describe the satisfaction of

Rows of dusty books

Sorted by category and author’s surname

Every shelf

Contains treasure, 

My “to read” list

Ever growing.

Even if I sat down and read books

Cover to cover

All day long

For the rest of my life

I would never reach 

The end.

My Local

"Matilda" by Quentin Blake

There is a picture of baby me

Somewhere in a dusty album

Perusing books off the bookshelf

As if I understood the meaning

Of the swirls on the page

I have been a member
Of my local library
Since forever
We visited almost every week
A giant pile of books each
Growing up I read a book a day
It was marvelous preparation
For a degree in English
Though the books at uni
Were denser
And required more analysis
Than the books
I had grown up with

My memberships are a testament
To my moving record
Not counting
Automatic membership
For the four schools

And two universities

I attended
I have been a member of over 15 libraries
On three different continents
In my twenty-eight years

I love to read
I love the quiet of the library
I love the shelves and shelves of books
The order of them
The insurmountable amount of
Knowledge
Contained therein

I feel at home
When I've joined the local library
It's as important as packing tape
And boxes
To have that library card in my wallet
Access to books
And a quiet place
For exploring
The world

The end.