A Personal Note (continued)

I Saw You Reading

Our buses idled at the red light,
I looked through my window and yours,
inches apart,
at the cover of the book you wouldn’t look up from.
It’s exactly the cover on my book.
The one in my lap. Best book I ever read!

I jumped.
I hit the window with my fist,
others noticed and tried to help,
in a moment 7 or 8 of us were banging on windows,
shouting. “Hey, you! With the book! You! Hey! Look up!
Hey! You! Look! The book! In your hands! Hey, you!
You! Look!”
You turned a page.

The light turned green,
our buses slowly sighed and lifted off,
yours turned right, ours ambled straight ahead,
I’m still in chapter 9.
You would have liked me,
I know you would have. I know it.

—Virginia Euwer Wolff

This poem originally appeared in The Horn Book, May/June 2005.