Sometimes at Poetry Readings

Sometimes at Poetry Readings I Feel I’m Back
in college dorm bathrooms
offering little personal privacy within a
humid community of succinct greetings.
 

Poets, honestly nude in spite of clothing,
before a steamy mirror with
a dental brush that
touches a hair brush in a toiletries basket,
 

some words perfect, others raise
questions,
until explanations come or disappear,
familiar setting, familiar people.
But we’re neither home nor
in transit, just some where for some time and some nakedness.
 

Similes comfortable as similarities
offer participants chances to interpret
psychological, emotional categorization:
silly words I think about when
I should clear my mind in
silence. Just smile.
 

Inadequate beige shower curtains,
opaque or translucent,
depending on the lights,
morning or bedtime: there’s percussive
punctuation, unruly and
personal,
a hand reaching for a towel—an unscripted gesture.
 

I’m back there when hearing
a poet read, whose
rhythms alter my
respiration.
 

Rosemary Dunn Moeller has had poetry published in Memory Echo Words, the Alembic, Broadkill Review, the Aurorean, Vermont Literary Review, Rockhurst Review, Thunder Storm and others.

She lives on Cape Cod for the waves, shores and birds.

Rosemary farms with her husband and together they follow migrating birds when seasons permit.