Quagmire’s a Redundant Word

Language is mostly signal.
Whole life is almost all noise.

There’s a bookstore on a street
Of old, low-rise, brick buildings

With a street lamp at each end
And then nothing but quagmire,

A green bog within a bog,
Solidifying to trees

Around the margins. The trees
Are starting to lose their leaves.

The bookstore’s open and full
Of printed pages, but no

Customers. There is no clerk.
Outside, the only person

Is standing in the fall sun,
Well-dressed and simply waiting.