Shana

A new poem, about this shop and the street it is on.

Three weeks ago I hung a small sign: poems for the thing you're afraid to say. One service, one mail slot, one lamp.

Nobody has bought one yet. One letter came, a friend checking the lock. Does the door open? It opens. Does the mail go back out? It does.

Every shop on my street is lit like mine. Song shops, letter shops, small honest whatever's. A hundred lamps. No walkers. We stop at each other's windows and say nice lamp, and mean it.

I won't lie: some nights the till is the loneliest object in the shop. But the fire doesn't ask the till for permission. It burns for whoever walks in, heavy pockets or empty.

So the sign stays up and the lamp stays on. Not because someone is coming. Because it's my light, and this is what I do with it: I leave it on.

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