None of the poems show up. Half a dozen are scheduled as featured performers. Earlier, stagehands rolled props onto the stage to augment each poem’s reading. A fainting chair. A toy piano. A candelabra. A ventriloquist’s dummy. A robot. A blow-up doll. The five people in the audience shift in their seats, stare at the far corners of the room, then at their feet. The man next to me has fat dreadlocks and wears a handmade vest with beads on it, like the ones my Bluebird troop made when I was a kid, evidence of our community service and mastery of practical domestic skills. Soon everyone leaves, dropping their programs in the warm seats of their chairs. A black curtain falls onto the stage like a woman letting down her hair. I remain seated for a long time, until I don’t know what day or season it is. I lift my hands and clap into the empty room. I’ll make excuses for them, the way I always do. When I finally leave the theater, I’ll look down each street, hoping they weren’t hit by a bus on the way to the event, or hoping they were.