Snow and Roses
Published by Richard Doyle,
At the "Snow and Roses"
after Louis MacNiece
Walk in and I can hear birdsong. Or is it whale-music? On all sides are stacks of anthologies, bundles of collections and showers of pamphlets. Think of a poet and a book is in my hand, feel sad for a moment and a luminous sonnet fills my heart. Walking through the stacks is a reverie, there are clocks and astrolabes, wind-chimes and starcharts, jars of gobstoppers and mint humbugs, sprigs of jasmine and thyme. One corner has snowglobes of the bookshop with the pink letters of its sign shining against white. I pick one up and shake it to see myself walking in through the door.