Here is an invitation to the books you are about to order: “Book Club” appears in Four Blue Eggs, which is now conveniently available directly from me. Find the “Buy Now” on the “Purchase Signed Copies” menu tab. Pull up a chair, grab a cup of tea, and make your purchase (through PayPal) today. I’ll be happy to personalize messages and get your copy to your mailbox asap.
Book Club
In the months before my father died
he joined a half-dozen mail-order book clubs.
The hard backs with their sturdy resolve
arrived week after week
as his own pages dissolved in vinegar.
After, the packages clogged the front step,
waiting for idle new eyeglasses, waiting
for a heart, bruised and bypassed,
to decipher conquests and romances,
to find that it was not unlike others—
full of the blood that would betray it.
I pull up to the long driveway
and find, rubber-banded to the post,
this month’s arrival—The Oxford
Companion to World Mythology.
Instead of scribbling cancel
on the invoice, I crack the spine
in order to breathe in the crisp pages,
to decipher the stories that will have to fill
the spaces where my own heart failed.
As always, you can also buy unsigned copies and e-books through Homebound Publications. Add a couple other titles to your cart while you’re at it.
Amy Nawrocki 