Poem of the Week #162

Inscription

I go back to my quiet dusting
in my warm house,

find a book on the shelf, given
to me on my nineteenth birthday

by a friend of my parents
whom I did not know well.

At nineteen, do we really
know anyone? Günter Grass,

The Flounder. The gift-giver
died, a few years after the giving

in a car crash. I remember her
circa 1979, blond and pretty.

On the title page, she wrote:
To Lisa, who is warm and beautiful
and a delight to know.

It is a hefty book,
and I’ve never read it;

just once in a while,
her inscription.

Lisa Vihos