Laptop resting
between sweating lemonade
and raspberry scone
on a bookstore café
tabletop.

Customers' eyes scanning
through text and tome
by themselves
at various bookshelves.

I am sitting
at my pulpit and post
writing what I privately spy
as patrons browse and buy.

Missing the Bookstore

Ah, 2020, the year that changed everything. Lockdown isolated us, but it also inspired me to do more with my poetry writing. One of my first pandemic-inspired poems was I Miss… Pt. 1. Who knew you could miss something as simple as a salad bar?

This poem followed shortly after. During lockdown, I missed wandering the aisles of my local bookstore, pulling a book from the shelf just because the cover caught my eye, then settling into a café table with a cold drink, a pastry, and my laptop. Sometimes the writing came easily. Sometimes it didn’t. Either way, I missed being there.