The beautiful librarians by Sean O’Brien

The beautiful librarians are dead,The fairly recent graduates who satLike Françoise Hardy’s shampooed sistersWith cardigans across their shouldersOn quiet evenings at the issue desk,Stamping books and never looking upAt where I stood in adoration.

Once I glimpsed the staffroomWhere they smoked and (if the novelsWere correct) would speak of men.I still see the blue Minis they would driveBack to their flats around the park,To Blossom Dearie and red wineLeft over from a party I would never

Be a member of. Their rooms looked downOn dimming avenues of lime.I shared the geography but not the worldIt seemed they were establishingWith such unfussy self-possession, norThe novels they were writing secretlyThat somehow turned to ‘Mum’s old stuff’.

Never to even brush in passingYet nonetheless keep faith with them,The ice queens in their realms of gold –It passes time that passes anyway.Book after book I kept my wordElsewhere, long after they were goneAnd all the brilliant stock was sold.