I text Mallory that I’m thinking of going to her reading in Pilsen on Saturday night but she answers she’s sick in bed and won’t make it. I decide to go anyway. It’s not far from home and I recognize a couple readers’ names from the internet.

I lock up my bike on the short iron fence to the right of the entrance. It’s a corner building and the poster said to look for the side door. It’s open and I see a set of mismatched chairs set up so I know I’m in the right place.

There are only a couple people inside. I’m early, as usual. I pick a seat and look around. The hostess offers wine but I still have my ice coffee from Jumping Bean.

The walls are partially repainted a dark green but show worn away layers of previous paint jobs, it’s intentional like ripped jeans. A small sidetable stands near the back wall like a podium for the chairs, holding a vase of flowers. The wall behind is full of lit candles in small compartments, stretching up to the ceiling. A small bathroom is on the left wall, with another passageway just beyond it. Several women go in and out, making final preparations for their guests’ arrival.

Soon the seats fill and the reading begins. From where I sit, the readers’ faces are each partially obscured by flowers. The level of interference varies according to the reader’s stature and posture. It’s dark too. Only candlelight and the phones and laptops off which they read to illuminate their faces.

I like the translations of 90s Chinese poems, first read in the original. The reader says the writer belonged to a group called the Lower Body Poets and, indeed, many of the poems had to do with functions of that part of the anatomy.

A few people ask about the drawings after and the hostess asks to take some photos. I want to ask her what she does here when there aren’t literary events. I heard her refer to the place as an apothecary but don’t see many vials or tinctures. Maybe they’re in another room through the doorway the women passed through before.

I wonder whether I could read in such darkness. I’d probably bring a clip light and ruin the vibe. I ask the hostess whether there’ll be more readings and she says she hopes there will be.

I go home and scan the drawings and post them online. Many of the readers “like” them and that’s the end of that.