Back in the day,
that day being the last time
I attended an open mic,
odd since most are intimate enough
that no microphone is provided,
I stood at the lectern
and looked carefully at the audience
that was mine for the next few minutes.
I wanted to see their response
to me, my clothing choices
and then my words, trying to read
the indecipherable map of their faces.
But I quickly recognized that almost
all were fellow poets or those friends
dragged to the reading by them,
and too often listening to me
was just part of the price of having
others regaled by the brilliance
of the poems they would soon offer.