not the thing in the chest that snarls and howls,

the thing you bury in water because it wants to drink and

wants to drown, because you want what it wants, it’s

nobody’s fault but yours. In the end you are not rock or heart

or pond. You are the ripple on the water, the green echo, love.

She read for nearly an hour. I wanted to know all of those poems, by heart. In between poems she spoke, sometimes humorously, sometimes seriously and with some effort. She said that for her, writing poems was by now a way of processing the world, and she did not know any other way, and she would risk sounding arrogant by saying she thought it was the best of all possible ways. She spoke for a time about the battle for the earth, the warming climate, the oceans filled with plastic, the lands gouged with wells and mines. There had been something about her environmental work on the poster, I remembered. She was charming, and tired, and formidable. It was like watching an actor make a stage their own, except here the only script was herself.

When she was done, and when people had applauded her, I got up and made my way to the front of the room, since she’d said to do so. There were people crowding around, wanting to talk to her, wanting her to sign books, so I hung back.

She saw me and smiled and spoke to me over the others. “I’m so glad you’re here! Will you come over to the house some afternoon? I’m always there.”

“Sure. Whenever you want me to.” I wanted to say something about the poems, but I didn’t trust myself not to babble or gush.

“Tomorrow. Or the next day.” Someone else claimed her attention then and I watched her listen, nodding gravely, holding their hands in hers.

Matt was standing just outside the auditorium, not even pretending not to wait for me. “I thought you said you didn’t know her.”

“I said I didn’t know her poems.”

“Huh.” He considered this. “I should have been more specific.”

I waited for him to finish being mad about whatever he was mad about. He was the one I didn’t know, although he was acting like I did. It was dark by now. A wind rattled the eucalyptus leaves overhead. I was impatient to start home, to be alone in the car and think about everything I’d heard.

He said, “So you weren’t just trying to make fun of me? Pretending you didn’t know anything about poetry.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re kind of a strange girl.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t suppose you need a—”

I held up my car keys. “Been very nice talking to you.”