The bookshop on Lexington closed today. I only learned this when I walked past at noon and found the windows already soaped white, the shelves inside stripped bare except for one forgotten volume lying face-down on the sill.
I'd been meaning to go in for weeks—months, really. There was a poetry section in the back corner where the floorboards creaked, and the owner, a woman whose name I never learned, always left a thermos of tea on the counter that she'd offer to anyone who stayed longer than ten minutes. I never stayed. I'd browse, select nothing, nod politely, and leave with that particular guilt of the person who loves books but buys them online.
The forgotten volume turned out to be a collection of Mary Oliver's work. Wild Geese. I know that poem by heart, the one about not having to be good, about letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Standing there with my hand on the cold glass, I wondered if the owner had left it deliberately, or if it was just chance. Either answer felt like an accusation.