Lines Written in Solitude, after Chaos

"Eleven thousand introverts milling around" is how one of my publishers described the convention to me, which is more or less accurate. There was a person dressed up as a Roman centurion, for no reason that I could perceive. There were tattooed young women with artfully ripped stockings. There was a pathetic young man dressed in a full suit, clearly in town to interview for a job he would not get.  There was a middle-aged man whose hair was dyed to match his tie. There was an earnest grad student who told me she was majoring in "whiteness studies." There was a large TV screen message sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, quoting a black poet who declared, "Never write about being white." There was me, being offended. There were journal editors disguised as carnies: "Hey, you! You like poems? Come here, read this poem! Hey, you!" There were journal editors who had no recollection of ever publishing my work. There were sweet people who shouted at me through the crowd: "Dawn, Dawn, Dawn!" There was excessive fluorescent lighting and ridiculous lines at the elevators and comic repartee among people who had never seen one another before. There were people hitting me up for a job, if you can believe that. There was a whole lot of snow. There was riding on the Green Line after dark, alone and pleased to be so. There were handsome young men at a mostly empty, red-lit Lebanese restaurant. There was dinner chatter about "famous men with whom I have had dalliances." There was me, learning new things, because I have never had any dalliances with famous men. There were embraces that were real. There were embraces that were odd. There were people I recognized but was suddenly driven to hide from. There was the balky and no doubt self-defeating determination not to attend any event that involved adulation. There was the discovery that I seem to know a lot of men named Bruce. There was palpable envy and desperation. There were moments of calm and good cheer. There was too much free candy. There were convention center employees, standing around in their cheerless uniforms, keeping their thoughts to themselves.