the well-nourished moon: Report: Sarah Manguso & Jordan Davis & Chris Edgar land in California

Canessa Park was perfect. I sat between Del Ray Cross and James. Sarah's friend Kayne was there, and Kayne's boyfriend I think, who isn't a poet but who seemed similarly inflamed. He interrogated Jordan about poetry in the bar later (Why did you choose poetry over the other arts. How do you all find each other. What do you do. Why do you do it. Wherefore poetry?) OK so I also interrogated Jordan but know today that I missed so many questions I wanted to ask and repeated several obvious ones twice or even three times as the night went on. Bushmills. The bartender asking the waitress if we were a bunch of Irish protestants in the corner. Canessa Park was perfect because of the light. And the turquoise doors. And the brick. And the people in the wooden chairs, and remembering Peter Gizzi and Elizabeth Willis standing in front of the desk reading there and Brent Cunningham sitting at the desk reading there and Andrew Felsinger also sitting. Sarah, Chris and Jordan stood in front of the desk while they read. Intimate as in being able to hear the audience's various types of breath-as-response, one of which is laughter.

I had forgotten about the two turquoise doors to the bathrooms at Canessa, how the sink is wide and public, just outside the turquoise doors, and how washing my hands there feels communal and safe.

Jordan said that he'd wanted to read at Canessa since either 1996 or 2000, I can't remember which trip.…

Here is the love poem Del wrote during the reading last night:

I love you against the red bricks

your mouth is sort of open
and you wonder if I'm
breathing on you as
you lean against the
red bricks with your
mouth slightly open

I believe I could
find you easily
even though
it is a shame
you are not here
against the red
(orange and pink)
bricks which I
push you into
so hard

you don't want me to
and yet you let me

look at the socket
beneath your cheeks
aqua blue
which the spotlight lights
where the paintings
are supposed to be

where you lean
slightly against your
open mouth
and its red bricks
so discordant