Monday 28 February 2011

ARMSTRONG EXPERIENCES A SHIVER OF HOPE IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

 
In the heart of the country
Armstrong is ailing.

Beside the Tesco
in the marketplace

last week he lay
across a trolley's

path, screaming:
We have no betters!

Music is ours!
His allergies get

worse. He talks
in honey-nut loops.

His paranoia
makes him fear

the squirrels
in the woods.

But, just the other
day, as he was browsing

through the large print
books, he saw a

woman at the done-for
public library desk

get up on tip toes
like an agile cat;

and peering over
piles of burnished

paperwork, she took
him in her eyes

and smiled, and gently
she began to say

(with Polish words):

Loneliness
will not last.

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