I wonder what books I bought
at that old woman's garage sale when I
had just graduated elementary school.

She wore her hair in a ponytail of grey,
and at my age I'd imagined that her garage sale
was surely the result of her impending death.

"You like books?" she asked me, her old vocal chords straining,
as her old chapped lips parted to form the words. "Yeah,"
I replied, handing her my crumpled ones.

I figured the exchange must've made her happy
because it must've caused her to re-evaluate her generation's decision that
America's youth were declining in literacy and manners

but that thought was as delusional, I think, as the one I had
sitting on my front porch, a block away, that evening,
that perhaps the old woman had already died.

I guess I'd like to know what books I bought from that old woman
so that I might finally read them
and ensure that those crumpled ones I'd handed over
hadn't been wasted.