In Bob Dylan’s backyard <br />there were twelve chapped faces <br />huddled in an old church basement <br /> <br />a poetry reading volunteer <br />and her nervous boyfriend <br />the host, a poet from California <br />finishing her second book <br />an insurance salesman <br />who never met a poet before <br />a scruffy bearded old man <br />who said he was going to move to Mexico <br />tomorrow <br />two Chicanas, a secretary from Michigan <br />an actress from Texas <br />a Peruvian woman who was an Art Director <br />and her son, who thought poetry was for sissies <br />an older Indian woman only <br />wearing a shawl <br />and three people who left <br />before I noticed them <br />all staring at me <br />as if I was a log <br />in the fireplace <br />crackling poems <br />into the night<br /><br />Oscar Mireles<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/thanks-to-the-people-who-showed-up-at-a-poetry-r/
