{"id":100193,"date":"2021-06-27T02:10:16","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T06:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=100193"},"modified":"2021-06-27T06:46:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T10:46:39","slug":"closing-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/closing-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s five o\u2019clock.<br \/>\nClosing time.<br \/>\n<em>Yes, I\u2019m afraid so.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Yes, we are open tomorrow from ten.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Thank you.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Good evening.<\/em><br \/>\nCl-lick.<br \/>\nThe lock settles into place in the door.<br \/>\nBehind me, I hear the library rustle.<br \/>\nBack to work.<\/p>\n<p>The audio books are first to emerge,<br \/>\nOozing out across the floor like mollusks.<br \/>\nI scatter handfuls of earbuds for them in the corner.<br \/>\nAnd herd one back in place with a broom.<\/p>\n<p>The children\u2019s picture books can cause havoc.<br \/>\nTheir great wingspan and excitable nature<br \/>\nCan have them up on the ceiling in minutes.<br \/>\nIf you\u2019re not careful. Luckily, I\u2019m trained.<\/p>\n<p>The non-fiction section settle ponderously on the tables<br \/>\nLike owls. They don\u2019t need much, but they startle easily.<br \/>\nI move slowly, and give one or two of the friendlier tomes<br \/>\nA scratch behind the wipe-clean cover.<\/p>\n<p>The languages are noisy. No way around that.<br \/>\nLike parakeets, they have a lot to say and<br \/>\nThey\u2019re not shy about saying it. I shake the box of vowels,<br \/>\nand fend off a greedy dictionary. He\u2019s already been fed.<\/p>\n<p>The tech books drape themselves protectively<br \/>\nOver the public PCs. They\u2019ve been doing this a lot recently.<br \/>\nI think they don\u2019t like the new antivirus. I keep meaning to contact IT.<br \/>\nAt least they\u2019re not fighting the public again. Yet.<\/p>\n<p>We will not talk about the Mills &amp; Boon display.<br \/>\nEspecially not \u2013 <em>especially<\/em> not \u2013 the large print editions.<br \/>\nAnd large-print is usually so well-behaved.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s usually best just to leave out lots of water.<\/p>\n<p>The fiction\u2026 I sigh. The fiction is the most chaotic.<br \/>\nA great flapping mass of shelves as they<br \/>\nCompete for nesting space. The lonely copies<br \/>\nOn the shelving trolley cooing, mournfully.<\/p>\n<p>I shouldn\u2019t complain. The fact that they\u2019re out for me<br \/>\nIs something of a compliment. Books like library staff,<br \/>\nOf course, generally speaking. But they do wait until there<br \/>\nAren\u2019t many people near at all to really come alive.<\/p>\n<p>It would be nice to watch them settle,<br \/>\nJust take a seat and be here, safe in the susurrus.<br \/>\nBut it\u2019s time for the worst job in the library day.<br \/>\nI go and fetch a shovel to muck out the reviews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s five o\u2019clock. Closing time. Yes, I\u2019m afraid so. Yes, we are open tomorrow from ten. Thank you. Good evening. Cl-lick. The lock settles into place in the door. Behind me, I hear the library rustle. Back to work. The audio books are first to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102103,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100193\/revisions\/102103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}