Friday

The usual.
        Three kinds of cheese:
                gouda
                        provolone
                                and some kind of Norwegian cheese that looked and smelled Swiss
arranged on a board with grapes and stoned wheat crackers.
(How did the crackers manage to get stoned?)
Pita bread, hummus.
Cookies:
        oatmeal with raisins, and butter.

Thirty-five poets.

Alexis and I replaced a wheel, found hangers,

We try to count the number of poets in black;
it’s easier to count the ones not wearing black:
about five.

Knife to a wine glass.
Time to go sit in a circle.
Invite only,
so we proceed upstairs.

We’re hungry. We order antipasto salads
and steal a wedge of gouda and some crackers,
and listen enviously to the laughs erupting from downstairs.

Forty-five minutes and the delivery guy calls because
he can’t find Locust Walk.
He walks into the house as the poets are almost
through with their cigarette break.
Confusion and hilarity ensues, of sorts.
On his way out, the delivery guy asks Tom
if this is a dormitory,
suspiciously eyeing the crowd, for the most part
obviously not undergrads.
I don’t wait for Tom’s answer. I’m too hungry.

We walk home in the rain.
Poetry will reconvene in the Arts Café at ten
tomorrow morning.