If a man calls himself by initials, you can assume he has been asked why that is so on more than one occasion, so what's the point in asking again? It's the same with a scar I suppose. So let's move on. My housemate calls himself JG. Jay-Gee. That's fine with me. If you say it enough times it sounds like a foreign name you've just not come across before. Before Christmas we met up by chance in the city and went about Glebe drinking Czech beers and Scotch. He was due to meet up with someone who in the end couldn't make it. It was the middle of the week and quite quiet. Service was prompt. Eventually we found ourselves checking the shelves in Sappho Books, where we were told a poetry reading was taking place and so we would need to be quiet. JG considered it a superfluous instruction and said as much, and now saw it as a necessity to attend. We each got a beer and found a small free table up against a wall. JG was informed that the open mic session was about to commence. Hearing poetry read to me has never been a highpoint in my poetry experience, I much prefer the silence of the printed word, and so I let the words wash over me and continued my silent eye wanderings like I had done out on the street. Soft red and orange lighting flickered on the faces of folk sitting before the stage. I wondered where they had all come from, what were some of their stories, how they had arrived at this precise place at this precise time, and why was it I would have liked to have bought them all a drink. The first reader finished a poem and then came the applause. Another poem, more applause. Now my mind started wandering. I thought of Eileen. The shape of her breast in her dark red blouse. The three little lines on the side of her left eye when she laughed. The look in her eyes when she said she had to leave. When she walked away. I also thought about how it would have been impossible for me a few months ago to picture myself sitting on the other side of the world with a man called JG listening to people read their poetry. Then came more applause and the arrival of another reader. When the scent of Eileen started seeping from somewhere into the vicinity of our table, I decided to pay more attention to the present. What struck me come the end was not the poems but the applause: each poem and each poet received the same kind: same volume level, same intensity, same length. It was as if each reader had warranted applause solely due to them possessing the nerve to read in front of an audience what they had written. Or maybe everyone else had their attention diverted elsewhere too, wandering about the whereabouts and wellbeing of their own Eileen.