Chester's Bookshop

A bookshop full of whirling dust
And wooden worlds of bookcases
Floors that creak with restless steps
Of readers gone departed
A bell above the door set to chime
For no one, for all time

No one here save Chester
Lonely tabby cat
Eats mice, and supple skeletons
Of critters in the floor
Reads Twain, ponders Honoré Balzac
All this to sate a thirst
For companionship of friends
While Chester waits for owners vanished
Never to come again

One day all goes up in flying flames
The pages burn and smolder
Fireflies upon the air
Nothing left but smoke

So Chester ventures alone
Out to the cold world
Without his friends of paper
No more trips to Missouri
Or frantic voyages to France

He is left with one hope
One deep desire, unlikely though it may be:
Perhaps the mice will be his friends
As he embarks on his new reality

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