Whose name will be inscribed in the book
just before mine?
From what country, from what unburiable ever?
Somebody I’ll never know, for sure,
Somebody whose fingers will never outline my face.
A splinter of his death will always remain in mine.
However,
no matter how thick, no matter how thin.
Charles Wright’s many awards include the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. His recent books include Caribou (FSG, 2014), Littlefoot (FSG, 2007), and Scar Tissue (FSG, 2006), and he was the guest editor of the 2008 edition of The Best American Poetry. He is the emeritus Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia. In 1993, he received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. In 2014, he was named Poet Laureate.