Edgar Bookworm

Edgar Bookworm

Edgar Bookworm with measured step,
treads the boards of his bookshop,
secondhand and used, but treasured,
both books and shop, imbued with the scent
of love and learning, fact and fiction,
and Edgar, passing between the stacks,
touches each of them with aging fingers,
familiar the worn covers, wrinkled pages,
drowning in the memories of deeds,
adventures, quests and tragedies
first sampled through these dusty words,
later the beloved companions
of decades of reading, handling, pressing
into other hands with similar glow
in the eyes, the eager faces of delight
at finding something they thought was lost.

So the old bookseller makes his rounds,
another day in the company of friends
that come and go, their names fading
on well-used spines, cracked and frayed.


Line count: 20
Free verse
For Poetry Topic of the Month Contest, October 2022
Prompt: National Book Month.