What is more touching
than a used-book store on Saturday night,
dowdy clientele haunting the aisles:
the girl with bad skin, the man with a tic,
some chronic ass at the counter giving his art speech?

That’s poet August Kleinzahler in his poem “San Francisco/New York” nailing a miniature portrait of the biz in just a few lines. The NYT recently profiled him.

[Via Donald Ramsey of ALL BOOKS CONSIDERED via the indispensable Bibiliophile List. Thanks!]