oh, you habitual absentee

you flagrant devotee to the sun

to the sand, to the salt air

you – the steadfast student of the

Royal Tern and the Western Sandpiper

who dares to lie about your

mid-day, mid-week

forbidden trysts

upon the sands of Pompano Beach

your face buried in the folds

of your Polar Fleece solar blanket

your golden hair scattered – unfettered

across your bronze, barren shoulders,

your lavender bikini askew and terribly

undone in a lone act of worship

to the Sun god

and you say to me that

the damned Bookshop deserves to be shuttered

because today…

…no one requires another second hand

romance novel by Nora Roberts, nor

Tom Clancy thriller,

nor used-boorish-business-book by

a self absorbed New York

billionaire

nor a moldy volume of earthy poems

by some

sodden old New England poet

nor a slim volume of

waggish verse

penned by a decrepit old beatnik

nor a magazine with prattling

celebrity scuttlebutt –

for

as you tell me so often –

and quite gently

that our days are measured

often in inches

and not in yards.