hole-in-the-wall bookstore, saturday afternoon by John Grochalski

they come in
giggle-tripping
down the narrow aisles

fashion scarves
knock-off bags
and designer leather

disturbing whatever viola abomination
the surly long-haired clerk had been playing

fondle everything
like small children

picking up books
and tossing them

schopenhauer and nietzsche flung about

the gangly cadence
of american tourist slang

buddhist chants with chewing gum hymns

and you wonder
how they found this place at all

this hole-in-the-wall bookstore
this small refuge from the weekend crowd

looking for books by george-what’s-his-name

the guy who wrote that book 1983
or 1984

or was it…1989?

About John Grochalski:

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.