I have your Christmas present from Jan.
I have the note that she wrote for you as well.
The note is dated: 12/1/2019.
That wasn’t all that long ago.

The gift is interesting too.
It’s a copy of ‘The Best American Poetry of 1997’.
The pages are dog-eared throughout.

Did Jan do that for you?
Did you do that?
I’ll likely never know.

The book is 23 years old.
The gift is 59 days old.

Who loved it longer?
This thought limps & staggers
around the rooms of my mind
as I page through 1997’s ‘best’ poetic offerings.

It’s almost a zen-like meditation
that allows me to touch the name
of the love of this book
and
its
contents as they pertain to a
59 day old gift from Jan
to you
now to Jay…
all of us unknown to one another;

just like
Charles Simic’s poem:
‘The Something’
was to me
only
five minutes
ago.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020