Saba Keramati

I go to a poetry reading in Oakland and I am reborn

The brown poet laughs into the mic, says this one is for all my party people.
She is dressed in white and I am ready to marry.

The DJ (because, yes! there is a DJ at a poetry reading
in Oakland) plays Solange and Cardi B. We bump to it,

the hellas in me hella present for the first time in a long time.
I clap, I snap, I say mmm with abandon,

instead of pretending poetry is fragile
and will only accept my demure nodding head.

We are not in a museum.
We are alive and full of glory.

The emcee is beautiful, and a Pisces.
I know, because she made us share joy with our neighbors.

I have a crush on her.
I have a crush on the whole evening:

the bookstore with authors with names like mine,
the soft fog of rapture slowly filling the room

like the earth of our ancestors risen to listen.
The hospital where I was born is around the corner.

As if my beginning had fated this discovery:
the familiar burn of incense smoke.

I look around and see so much of what I have been missing.
My party people. Exalted and magnificent.

Where have I been, instead of here?
The poet reads. We stomp our feet.