for Roger

The used bookshop’s cat has died
Exactly where the dust of time decides.
Alfred sat among the books in silence
Like the living presence of the past tense.
Always in tuxedo, he was mysterious
As Max Beckmann, and as serious.
A collector of voices and browsing faces
He was his own book of thoughtful places.
Goodbye, sweet tiger of the stacks.
Life is fiction and books are cats.