Pippa Little

Books Never Forget
i.m. Carlotta Miller Johnson

It was when you grew thin
and your study became your last room
we began to share each other’s books,
hemp bags stuffed full, emptied
then replenished till stacks grew squint
as old hawthorns across the carpet:
Louis L’Amour, The Mouse And His Child,
Secret Gardens and Midnight Lanterns, my memories
hugged your memories as an estuary the sea
so we met new in that weightless place –
then friends brought  from their own shelves,
all of us lapped and overlapped and grew;
how much I hope that last bare page
shimmered for you as you dove in.

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