Feature: A Poetry Reading

By Amanda Griswold

You didn't applaud between poems but
made affirmative murmurs
Deep in your several throats like
the radiator hum
kicking on mid-October, before
you're used to either
the sound or the cost.

I'm used to neither my
gas nor electric—and savor
the sum of the check every month
the way, as a girl, menstruation in all
its intimate chores was still
blood.

I didn't think much of your poems, although
I kept them—like mail sent here,
to my first apartment, where
it isn't uncommon to find
someone else's
name on the letter. Some previous tenant
who’s left no address.

Amanda Griswold enjoys reading long dead authors and living poets in Buffalo, NY. She can be reached at griswoldam1@gmail.com