Seattle is a place to blossom as we turn the pages of our lives,
an ideal place to grow into crone-hood.
– Faye Reitman
Eighteen cross-genre writers
reading five minutes each
take turns lavishing
personal idiosyncrasies
and tone
on a packed house
of language lovers.
I ask the woman sitting next to me,
tears streaming down her face.
why she’s crying
and she says:
They’re so good,
They’ve worked hard
and I’m proud of them.
I squeeze her hand
and the two of us hug
as if we knew
each other
long before
today.
My friend Faye
up from California
says:
I heard Seattle
was a reading town
But I didn’t know
it was a place to blossom
in the basement of a book store
or on someone else’s unseen page.
I think I’ll move here.
And she did.
