Friday Night at the Bookstore
by Lynn Finger
We’re right next to the all-night liquor store,
our doors joined at the hinge.
People come into my bookstore with
a bag of Grey Goose or Pinot Grigio tucked in their arm,
backlit by the green neon sign, and ask
for translations of Neruda, or the newest
sci-fi mystery. When we have a lull,
I go next door and talk to the owner Carl. He’s tall
with black hair, face like a bittern and has a long stare,
like neither of us breathe.
I don’t know the whole
background, there’s a divorce, kids he doesn’t see much.
He likes to catch fireflies to see them glow in the cage
of his hands, then release
them to the night.
When Carl laughs, he gasps, sputters, and says, don’t you know it.
Carl tells me, life isn’t borrowed time, it’s hard bought. I paid
for everything I owed
and more. Getting tired,
don’t you know it. Carl asked me for the sonnets of Petrarch,
and some Angelou. Tonight, I’m bringing him the books he wants.
As I enter the store, someone else, a smiling college-age
man with red hair,
is at the counter. I lay the books
in front of him, Carl here? He looks down: I thought you’d know.
Broken stars in my gut. He’s gone, took his own life last night.
I thank the new clerk
and return to my store.
I should reshelve Carl’s, but instead I tuck them under my front counter,
as if he might come by some day to pick them up. It is too sudden, his
leaving. But that’s how people leave.
It seems this evening,
in the neon light glow from the street, and slam of the adjoining door,
he just might stop by to collect them, collect his breath, with a handful
of fireflies, his laugh.
I’m ready
for that laugh, any laugh again, anything.
our doors joined at the hinge.
People come into my bookstore with
a bag of Grey Goose or Pinot Grigio tucked in their arm,
backlit by the green neon sign, and ask
for translations of Neruda, or the newest
sci-fi mystery. When we have a lull,
I go next door and talk to the owner Carl. He’s tall
with black hair, face like a bittern and has a long stare,
like neither of us breathe.
I don’t know the whole
background, there’s a divorce, kids he doesn’t see much.
He likes to catch fireflies to see them glow in the cage
of his hands, then release
them to the night.
When Carl laughs, he gasps, sputters, and says, don’t you know it.
Carl tells me, life isn’t borrowed time, it’s hard bought. I paid
for everything I owed
and more. Getting tired,
don’t you know it. Carl asked me for the sonnets of Petrarch,
and some Angelou. Tonight, I’m bringing him the books he wants.
As I enter the store, someone else, a smiling college-age
man with red hair,
is at the counter. I lay the books
in front of him, Carl here? He looks down: I thought you’d know.
Broken stars in my gut. He’s gone, took his own life last night.
I thank the new clerk
and return to my store.
I should reshelve Carl’s, but instead I tuck them under my front counter,
as if he might come by some day to pick them up. It is too sudden, his
leaving. But that’s how people leave.
It seems this evening,
in the neon light glow from the street, and slam of the adjoining door,
he just might stop by to collect them, collect his breath, with a handful
of fireflies, his laugh.
I’m ready
for that laugh, any laugh again, anything.
Lynn Finger’s poetry has appeared in 8Poems, Wrongdoing Magazine, Perhappened, Twin Pies, Book of Matches, Drunk Monkeys, and Not Deer Magazine. Lynn is an editor at Harpy Hybrid Review and works with a group that mentors writers in prison. Follow Lynn on Twitter @sweetfirefly2 and @lynmichf on Instagram.