That sultry summer came back to me ...

This morning I returned John Conolly's Night Music to Wareham Library - 

You should join Anne had said - you can't just keep on buying books - there's no room for them all - 

She was right - 

My shelves were piled high, double packed, with lurid pulps, raffish memoirs, venerable Everymans - 

Window ledges were freighted with moleskines and journals of pyschogeography -

The library was warm and silent - eager volumes waited for readers -

I remembered all the libraries that I'd loved - 

There I was, aged twelve, borrowing BB's The Little Grey Men - 

I'd cycled up Palmyra Road, breathless and artless, ready for wonder - 

There I was, in the library overlooking Gordon Square, borrowing Stubbs' Constitutional History - 

I'd met Beverley over bound copies of the Hampshire Chronicle in the old Portsmouth City Library - 

She'd placed my hand upon her tawny skin, smiling her calm slow motion smile - 

It was in Beverley's flat that I'd first seen Anne - 

That sultry summer came back to me, the smell of warm grass, joints, perfumed hair - 

11.30

Tuesday 5 January 2016

Wareham Library

Wareham

Dorset