Hard Art

I sat at the poetry reading
The only woman under sixty
The only woman wearing combat boots
The only woman with rolled jeans, colored socks, Earl Grey tea in a Styrofoam.

The wood chair squeaked each time I moved
Reached for a pen
Zipped up my backpack
Leaned forward to listen closely

It was quiet otherwise
Quiet behind me and beside me
Bald man with olive-colored age spots
Bored and there just with his wife and her friends

I feel tears threatening to loose themselves
When the poet reads of sons at college
And daughter's covered in tattoo ink
And surviving Hurricane Hugo

I shift and the chair squeaks
I self-consciously wonder if they think I am incapable of listening
These older women who find me funny in my purple sweater
Who preach that art is difficult and poetry can only be written under the dire-est of circumstances

In a classroom under flourescent lighting
Sweating and bleeding onto paper with trembling hands
And the watchful eye of a doddy professor with a strict and pin-tight bun
Staring over your unworthy shoulders...

Forget the moonlit partings and the grass covered Shakespeare in the firelight
And the shattering break up and the steaming cups of coffee and
The timing of serendipity and the struggle of marriage and motherhood
And the stolen moments at cafe tables with napkins

Or the 2AM and midnight feedings with a notebook flapped on your tired lap
And your pen in your mouth barely stroking the lined paper
The tapping out of something you barely understand through the screaming
Of your six year old child and the spellings of words catcalled over your head by your hard-working husband and protests because they don't want showers and they don't like dinner and you are the sheltered and shoved-in artist who didn't relate when the poet today said the only identity that really resonates with her is "mother" and you feel like a guilty horrible pig for thinking it and now here you are on the bed quilt that is torn and tattered in strings and ruined endings of old squares and you are scared of unemployment and you are scared of all your longings and of your unfortunate misunderstanding of religion and of dying and of renting cars and buying your own train ticket and somehow...

You still manage to write poetry.

They all clap.

I tap on my leg because I'm holding my tea in one hand,
They set up for the signing.
I leave casually.  I buy nothing.
$16.95 was a hefty looking price tag and I have already spent my allowance on the tea.