A poetry reading is an indulgence. A poetry reading longer than an hour, self-indulgence. A poet must remember that a certain proportion of the people listening to him or her will be there out of a peculiar sense of social obligation, perhaps nothing more. A couple short poems. A longer one. Memories of Berkeley from the last century, your mother's garden in Amherst. That winter you spent in Irvine. An assurance that you don't know where your ideas come from, they just come to you. And everyone goes home not feeling like they may have just lost an hour of their lives in which they could have been watching Game of Thrones or searching for love on the internet.