I went to the used book store
on Center Street.
I went with a casual friend--
which felt like a stranger reading
indisputably over my shoulder.

The building was potent with history.

I broke away from her,
Needing room to make a discovery.
Navigating to the section of Poetry--
Piles of unwanted compilations
tossed upon shelves and quickly forgotten.

Tired from the lunch still digesting and
Fidgety from the need to discover a bathroom,
I explore the poetic towers that seemed
Resigned to their fate.

And I unearth a priceless gem.
An exhausted, scarlet book written in
1986.
A Poet that my Poet Aunt had never heard of.
A Poet that spoke to me in the first line my eye uncovered.

With each poem I read by night's lamplight,
Or on my lunch break,
I wonder how many others have enjoyed her writing.
How many people have dug behind the shelves and through the towers.
And discovered her.

And then I think about her in writing's hopeful process,
Imagining how many lives she would touch.

21 years later.