Second-hand Bookshop
written by: Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Below the craters of a sullen city
I burrow lightly, cautiously, hands on
Guardrails, one foot after the other,
Into the underpart of the earth,
Through a spiralling, syncope-fomenting
Stairwell, old and broken, but grandly ancient.
The light thereunder is dim and shallow,
And the rest of the matter with it was a
Basket of fusty smell.
It was by the loose side of noontime,
When mustiness gathers sweltering details.
Little rain from last night, falling from a
Sobbing, laconic south,
Made issues graver.
But I don’t mind.
With cracked, besieged walls, the grounds
Welcomed me well.
I stood and gazed at the books on staffed shelves,
Aged and worn,
Graced by times’ capsule of relief by way of
Primitive reckoning.
Tablets and scrolls rave with the lustre of fading
Yellowness.
Tomes (leather-bound) attested to the pregnancy
Of departed eras.
Encyclopaedia Britannica eyed me warmly.
A tall, bespectacled man, the age of Wilde,
With apricot skin and second-hand suit,
Thin and wobbling stick,
And shoes from Lennard’s
Buried his face on a Chaucer
Material, reading silently to the tune of
His twerking soul, his full lower lip
Mocking the higher.
Men and women clutter about, searching
And peeking from shelves of immortality,
On whose dusty surfaces elderly pages stuck
Out their tired, resting tongue-tips —like
Stray, hungry dogs on battered pavements.
The books and volumes sell for a farthing each —
Coins betrayed by roaming verdigris.
The quill feather pens for a few dashing shillings,
The scrolls, some teeth-showing cowries . . .
Above us (the reading congregation of this temple
Of books and time),
A coven of reading witches and winking wizards,
The city throng manages itself with the due process of law
According to traffic —above—
And several feet below — underground —
The hidden treasure of
Digestible info,
Divergent views.
- Second-hand Bookshop - February 27, 2026
