“Villainy” in LA

Dear Andrea,
The time of the reader is so different from the time of the writer.
Last week on the metro in LA, I was reading Villainy years 
after you wrote it and years after I first started reading it. 
I feel like with poetry the reading is never over, the book is
always still happening. (Does the writing stop either? Does it
ever end? Do you ever get over it? What are you feeling now?)
These last few years have been a CLUSTERWHAT?! BLUR
and it felt so good to be doing this very New York City thing 
displaced in LA, reading your book on “public transportation”
which is to say not in a car but in the world where earthquakes 
make the whole proposition questionable (not just the subway 
but living here at all) and I transferred from the grungy red line 
known for abjection to the posh blue line which goes above-
ground into Culver City and they’ve done something here
with the trains because it was quiet and clean and pretty
and it was still mostly BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE
OF COLOR, even some BLACK PEOPLE IN LOVE, I was
feeling them around me getting caught up again in your SPELLS,
the ones in love had such QUEER ENERGY, although who knows,
maybe your book was giving it to them, CONTAGIOUS QUEER
ENERGY like the BLACK WOMAN who came on the train 
asking do you need a sandwich? do you need a sandwich? 
do you need a sandwich? hey tap that guy at the door! do you need
a sandwich? I got them from USC they waste so much over there
and everyone was afraid of her and tickled and kind of smiled
and one guy took a sandwich and it was MOBILE MUTUAL AID  
and I thought you should know. Thanks again for sending me
your ARC back in 2021. May our paths cross again soon.
xo Gabrielle Civil 

Copyright © 2024 by Gabrielle Civil. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 23, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

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