Her book tour brings an author
who extols the uses of beauty
to Powell’s City of Books on Hawthorne.
The audience is shoehorned into a space
where elbow-to-elbow seating recalls combat-
style fishing for Kings in Alaskan waters.
During the reading and Q&A, I take notes
of the author’s journey through territory
uncharted, fluid and mysterious.
Later, when I revisit my journal,
I find a trail of spilled Cabernet,
illuminating desert flora of Nevada, catering
advice from Jimmy’s Smokehouse, the Goddard
MFA recruiter’s hype about rolling admissions,
sightings of nutria and Montreal basilicas,
along with an elegy begun when the landlord
demanded removal of my 20-foot Empress tree.
Copyright 2016, Joan Maiers
Joan Maiers, University of Washington alum, hosts the Peregrine Literary Series in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Her poetry has appeared in Calyx, J Journal, Oakland Out Loud, VoiceCatchers, and Bellingham Review. She is preparing Specific Gravity for publication.