At Al’s where poets play,  

I smoke resinous weed
on porch, its scent swirls
around silk skirts I don,
learning to refuse
bourbon, wildfire
in my blood, too late
before challenging
a poet a playful
game of patty cake, yet
the picture reveals fierce
eyes locked erupting
in laughter until under
spotlight on stage,
behind mic, passions
turn serious, souls offering
painful laments, sobs, howls,
more laughter, shouts, murmurs
about mountaintop mastectomies,
women surviving trauma,
a Vietnam vet recalls lost soldiers,
someone recites a Civil War rhyme 
we excuse ourselves back to patio,
lighting cigarettes, waiting our turn,
assuring each other talent on tap
more meaningful than the pitchers
we empty in rounds, laughing
about liquid courage, feeling
like this is important. This
monthly gathering of souls
profound, those little stapled
pages of verse as significant
as any heavy anthology I once
studied, then taught, now write
poems we dare to speak.