Didn't realize I was posting a Glück poem in the previous entry and lo and behold the next day she's a Nobel laureate.

This small bit about her has stayed with me and will, probably, be something I boast to my future, non-hypothetical grandchildren (if I survived both this pandemic and the idea of having in-laws, that is): after my program's evening reading, Louise Elisabeth Glück descended the stage and I, an unimportant nobody merely standing the closest to the stage, offered her my arm. She mouthed thank you, twice. Thank you. Thank you, dear. Held my eyes briefly, very briefly. Sighed. Let go. And none of the words my peers and mentors said after the reading registered to me. Does it have anything to do with writing? No. Do I stand on the shoulders of literary giants? Yes. Do I swoon over them like a spectator at the sight of a rock star in a live concert? Yes, embarassingly so.

To my future, non-hypothetical grandchildren, I will show my hand, the hand that Glück once held, and tell them, "A god once walked among us, and this is the hand that she touched."