Catching Voices
It’s beginning to go dark. Cars crawl up the road then turn, re-turn. Someone’s waving and showing the way. I guess we’re lost as each other, same destination, same place beckoning in dreams and in space. Warm light spills out through wide glass doors. “Blackbird,” it says over the entrance. Inside the birds of women stoop and stalk. Someone welcomes me in. “Congratulations.” And I wonder if it’s real. Real cheese awaits, real vegetables beautifully displayed, and real figs—how I love figs. Real paper plates, but I almost forget to take one. It’s not the food or the wine that we’re here for though. In shadows at the back, stacks of books form a city on a table, Portland built by women’s words. Someone crosses off my name. You can tell the writers from the editors as we mill about the room. Newly minted, newly published, we hold our books close to the chest, juggle plates and try not to smear the precious page. Writers look up at passing strangers and smile. “Are you?” They point down w...