Marion the Librarian wakes promptly at 7:30, drinks her coffee; only decaf
(can't be jittery in the stacks)
She neatly makes her bed and folds her flannel pajamas.
Now dressed in one of several identical pleated skirts,
and one of a few identical button down shirts,
sensible shoes and proper deportment
When It's 8:40 AM, she leaves her apartment..
She allows herself exactly five minutes to cross the street, unlock the main entrance, and check the book return bin.
Library opens promptly at nine.
She fondly remembers the line
that went across the parking lot that day when the second Harry Potter book first arrived.
That's the only day anyone was waiting early
But it could happen again, so she has to be ready..
20 years she's been the head librarian in town.
20 years of helping high school kids learn how to cite papers,
helping the old codgers in town find the next Louis L'Amour book,
telling school kids when the Goosebumps Book they've been waiting for should finally be available.
And 20 years of so much silence and isolation
20 years of reshelving books, dusting desks and sending out late notices.
20 years of the townsfolk joking about her endless parade of "lovers":
Shakespeare, Chaucer, Thoreau, Tolkien, Chesterton and more...
20 years of waiting until exactly four
When her day ends, and she locks the door.
(What if, at exactly 3:59 a codger came in for a Louis L'Amour)
Her sensible shoes carry her feet
Out the main exit and across the street.
Marian the librarian checks her mail and walks with dignity and composure up the stairs
To her apartment
Like she's done for the past 20 years.
Closes the shades, puts on comfortable shoes,
eats a well balanced meal, then the six o'clock news ...
But then, oh then
,Only when
the news is over...
That ring:
too absurdly big for a token of a some man's affection.
Perhaps, in some symbolic way, it's Marian's social 'circle'.-..
That ring calls her again.
A plastic hoop from her childhood.
She steps into the center of the circle,
gives it a flick
gyrates her hips,
And her plastic hoop spins and it spins and it spins and it spins.
Effortlessly whirling in innumerable rotations
With the joy of a child on summer vacation
It spins and it spins and it spins and it spins.
Sometimes a half hour, sometimes late into the night.
It spins and it spins and it spins and it spins.
Until Marian the librarian is ready
for her flannel pajamas again,
Ready to sleep, and ready for the morning
When she starts her twenty-first year
As the dignified lady at the desk of the small town's library.
While an invaluable, magical, secret ring
Waits at home to set her free again.