Introduction
a poet friend of mine introduces me at a reading
as someone who has a cool job
and who isn’t available for sex
there’s a gasp in the room
the poet friend stumbles and
says they didn’t have enough coffee today
but anyway here she is, Anna, to read poems
all the way from New York and I’m
momentarily stricken with panic
because I can’t figure out if I’m supposed
to address what just happened or, as I’d
prefer to do, just ignore it and read my poems
particularly because I’m in the Bay I think
here they will surely think me not very
interesting not very strong if I don’t say,
“well that was fucked up,” or something
but I don’t say it because I can’t quite
figure out the words and this friend I think
surely they will apologize later after
the reading they will say “oh my god
I can’t believe I introduced you
by saying you are not sexually available,”
but this doesn’t happen
instead we go to a party and the poet friend
has a brief exhibitionist moment that
while I’m really high and my mind is
pretty expansive I wonder if it
can be interpreted as an apology
an abject moment of sacrifice
substituting my sexual taken-ness
with an offering of their availability
I decide I’m making more complex
what is at heart very simple
I go back to my cool job and I go back
to New York and then a few days later
I’m in a poetry workshop about meditation
and its relationship to writing. the workshop leader
wants to know why I’m there. Why are you here?
without meaning to I start to cry
“I want to feel good about the poetry
community” the workshop leader nods
and all the workshop participants nod.
the next day I decide to write an email
to the poet friend who introduced me
I say— thank you so much for hosting me
and setting up this reading for me
but I also want to acknowledge
what happened – what you said was disappointing—
and the poet friend responds immediately
by saying that I clearly don’t get that things in the Bay
are more casual than I’m used to and they tell me they are sorry
if I was jealous that other people got better introductions than me
they say listen, I’m working really hard to deconstruct
the patriarchy within myself
I go for a walk
I start to remember things
I tell a friend I don’t like where my mind is going
how another poet was introduced by saying
they would be great to be in a threesome with
how another poet was introduced by saying
let us welcome so-and-so and her body
as if her body were a separate entity
that trailed after her personhood
minor and major trespasses
at the exact moment of handing over
the stage the microphone
here you go, have at it
a few days later my dad tells me over lunch
about what will happen to his property and his money
when he dies. I don’t feel comfortable talking
about money so I just nod and then I go back
to work hoping not to later be accused of being
ungrateful. I open up a new email to my sister
to tell her about what my dad said
I want to communicate with her about
concrete things, real divisions
of money and goods
but instead of it coming out
in sentences or paragraphs
there’s a kind of
a poem written in the email
with line breaks
and I say things like, what are the possibilities
of all the things
someone might do with a house
we don’t have to think of a house the way
they tell us to think of a house
and later she says
I wanted to respond to you
but it was hard because
you wrote a poem
instead of being direct