Her legs folded on the bench
and had my full attention. She
wrote in a book or was maybe
drawing a picture, I'm not sure which.

I sat and waited for class
to begin, wondering what I was doing
there, wondering if the only reason
these kids even showed up to listen
to me talk was because they paid for it.

And than is that even worse than a
poetry reading, where most ignore
everyone else, waiting, some more
patient than others, for their
turn, their time to be heard
on that stage with the
lights blinding the audience from you
with the only notion of people
being that monotone applause between thoughts.