The Readers

The Readers

Walking into bookshops has been an occasional pastime and surely a sideline diversion each time I get the chance to walk into a city.

Observing people, the way they stand facing shelves, pick books, how they hold them, turn the pages and move between sections, can be as enticing as reading a novel's 1^st page.

On one such recent event, however, and while I was reading some randomly selected foreign author, I noticed, this time, the one being scrutinized was me. Without much thinking I did what was expected, kept reading

water swirling among seaweed and rocks

light crashing the horizon, desperate to put

an end to something, he turns his back to the scene

and runs

away

the streets are narrow, the night is closing her arms

around him neither past nor future

perhaps

only the dimmed foggy glare of the

night drizzle. Water

washing the streets

swiftly balancing my eyes about, I could see and feel another reader's breath oscillating from my neck to my upper arm, which made me turn and look around as if just checking – female, around forties; and eventually the sound of wristlets jingling against each other got me back into my read

privately you hum

our hands in happiness

a perpetual sense of now

shelters the wake of any

transgression:

we hug or kiss or both – its intensity

is hard to describe, though

darkness could be of sweet taste and

unexpected

I'm left with

the touch of your head

hands

mooring in my chest

counting whatever there is

to count – stars, hearts, ribs

fresh passion seeds – and

the sound of warm water flowing

into the sea.

© 2016, José Eduardo Coelho