MONTMARTRE
- Ruth Arnison
An open bookshop invites me inside
for an entree, a pre dinner
browse.
Tall ladders step up to high shelves.
Books lean against each other
swapping stories.
Madam backs down a ladder, thumps to
the floor and glares. I can't
translate her look.
She flicks her duster and English words.
This is not a library, don't touch
the books.
• Ruth Arnison is a Dunedin writer, book reviewer and editor of Poems in the Waiting Room (NZ).
