Poems for My Bookie

He tallies dawn in careful rows, where coffee steam like columns flows. My bookie, with his steady hand, makes sense of things I barely planned. He posts the breaths I held all day, debits doubts, then files them away. He credits laughter, line by line, and reconciles my mess with time. Between the margins, soft and neat, he turns my chaos into neat. And when the numbers start to blur, his voice becomes the signature.

He opens ledgers, page by page, like windows lifted from their cage. My bookie counts the light that spills across a city’s unpaid bills. He audits storms that passed last night, subtracts the thunder, leaves the light. He foots the sums of hope and doubt, and signs the dawn with “all checks out.” If life is more than what we owe, he’s proof in ink that love can grow— a balance sheet of quiet grace, with every loss found in its place.

In narrow margins, notes in blue, he writes the truths I always knew. My bookie, patient, calm, and wise, rounds errors down behind his eyes. He stores my futures, safe and sound, in folders no one else has found. And when the month-end fears accrue, he whispers, “Love will see us through.” So let the world make noisy noise— we’ll budget joy, not borrow poise. For every page we’re yet to keep, he’s penciled dreams I dare to reap.