Poem: i bought an Elmore Leonard/a bookmark as well/the pages curled/the pages a jamboree of escapades and hucksters and you

An arcadia of imagination

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The jets of the world. Pic: Paradisio Publishing

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An Elmore Leonard paperback and you

at Westchester out by LAX

the beach there the Pacific too in all its blue

jetplanes cruising down for the airstrip

South Bay Area sunshine burning since after the flood

i bought an Elmore Leonard paperback:

City Primeval

High Noon in Detroit

published, 1980

the pages curled,

the cover

pulp noir central,

hucksters and gunshots

oblivion days,

fistfuls of flowers

going down for the 8 count under the fight night lights;

and i bought a bookmark

too

embossed with the name of the store,

The Book Jewel,

and i took this and the paperback

to you

as a gift;

and you smiled.