Downtown Smalltown Poem by Janelle Farvour

It's downtown Smalltown and getting late.

The bookstore's windows are all fogged up, my head isn't clear and it's safe in here, so I go in.

A man holds the door for me and smiles like I'm the best thing that he's seen all day. And maybe I am. Maybe I am the best thing he's seen all day.

The pages white,
the covers tight,
I stared at the words of others
in that bookstore tonight.

'Excuse me, ' a girl says, and, 'I'm sorry, I just need to get this high one.'
A customer stretches himself as far as he can go.

The reaches and movements of strangers, all elbows and garlic breath in those crowded stacks of books.

On the way back home, the snow is falling so I go to the hill with the dog all alone, I'm singing and the stars applaud and there's no one but me and the dog to hear them.

It's late.

And no one around in

downtown Smalltown.