For home, from The Arkansas Testament, a signed copy. This one isn’t signed to me, but I think I have one that is signed that is mine from Florida, from some time between 1987 and 1988 when, after the reading, our UF creative writing class got to sit down to dinner with Mr. Walcott.

from The Light of the World / by Derek Walcott

I was afraid I might suddenly start sobbing
on the public transport with the Marley going,
and a small boy peering over the shoulders
of the driver and me at the lights coming,
at the rush of the road in the country darkness,
with lamps in the houses on the small hills,
and thickets of stars