I almost didn’t get there. “Zamia?” said the bus driver. “Never heard of it.” But the man with the unplaceable accent led me there. Trouble was, the houses were too big for a cohousing development. I trudged to the other side of Broadway, down Yellow Pine, up the street by the park, until the couple and a dog, faces obscured by dusk, showed me where to go.

I joined the group in the common house, filled a glass with water, but passed on the wine. Last time, I’d drunk a glass of wine before the reading and nodded off in the second row. I sat in the back, gaining a great view of everyone’s hair.

All I remember of the first reader, a man, is this description: funny. All I remember of the second reader, a woman, is a father and daughter canoeing the Missouri, following the trail of Lewis and Clark. All I remember of the third reader, a man, is this line: We want America back! And that was enough, for a while.

All I remember of the fourth reader, a woman, is this description: boredom. And the word chrysanthemums. And possibly iris. Her voice slow in that sleep-inducing rhythm of some read poetry, while I watched the dancer’s strong face. I didn’t want her to lull me to sleep, and there was wonderful hair all around me: coarse and long and brown, wavy and white and neck-length, dark and curly.