Author Information
Bookbound
One afternoon
Around half past two
A young policeman,
Callow
In blue
Entered my shop
He took me aside
Which was strange
We were alone
Then he showed me the receipt
Handwritten and damp
In the polythene bag
Franked with my own stamp
A paltry book order
Placed that day
I remembered the customer
With growing dismay
Small with fine hands
With long gold-brown hair
Bookish but flirty
When no one was there
“Did you know the lady?”
And “How was she dressed?”
“What was her name?”
Do you have her address?
“Did you notice anything strange?”
I had to say yes
She was edgy and tired!
And I’d heard, in the café
Just recently fired
My best customer!
For over a year
She came every week
Shy and quite nervous
She would stand in the rain
When I had customers
He closed his black book
And made his excuses
The Coroner would be in touch
He was sure
Then he left me
As the shop and the high street
Swam
In my tears
My best customer!
Had stepped off the platform
And caught the train
That since December
Doesn’t stop there
Later I looked at the records
The orders she’d made
Searching for reasons
In her reading
And seeing them all
For the first time!
As her nightmare
Became mine
“Sex and The Single Girl”
“How To Attract Your Ideal Mate”
“The Best Sex You’ll Ever Have”
“How To Get and Keep a Good Man”
“Sinful Sex”
“Undoing Depression”
“The Five Love Languages”
“Depression: The way Out of Your Prison”
“The Suicidal Mind”
And the last
Which came the next day
Ordered for me
I'd like to think
In tenderness
To read
In my
Endless
Loneliness
In my stupidity
In my Myopic
Preoccupation
And in my misery
“No Time To Say Goodbye”
(Surviving the Suicide of A loved One)
