Thanks To The People Who Showed Up At A Poetry Reading At Fifteen Below Zero Poem by Oscar Mireles

In Bob Dylan’s backyard
there were twelve chapped faces
huddled in an old church basement

a poetry reading volunteer
and her nervous boyfriend
the host, a poet from California
finishing her second book
an insurance salesman
who never met a poet before
a scruffy bearded old man
who said he was going to move to Mexico
tomorrow
two Chicanas, a secretary from Michigan
an actress from Texas
a Peruvian woman who was an Art Director
and her son, who thought poetry was for sissies
an older Indian woman only
wearing a shawl
and three people who left
before I noticed them
all staring at me
as if I was a log
in the fireplace
crackling poems
into the night