It's Still Life

The Local Shop

The wife of the local newsagent
keeps her white hair under a scarf.
She’s always in the background,
in an office with dark stained air,

sitting at a desk, calculator at hand,
holding a ledger in her left hand.
Her words run along her husband’s
spine. On a straight and narrow line.

He says he runs the shop, this
unsmiling man, heavily fleshed,
and whose eyes die little by little.

He drapes newspapers over dowels,
they flutter like prayer flags when-
ever a customer opens the door.
A brass bell rings. He looks up.

He always sets a newspaper aside
for me, particularly on Saturday,
when I habitually wake late.

Written for Napowrimo Day 4 with photo from @SpaceLiminalBot on Twitter, and Poetic Asides AprilPAD #4 “Active” poem, and “The Poeming” ekphrastic and found poem mined from Silence of the Lambs on Tumblr.  
and shared with @Experimentsinfc #APoemADay on Twitter   © Misky 2021