Rejection After the Reading

Someone brought tacos to the basement bar— al pastor, slick with pineapple and something red that warned from the foil. I took one because she handed it to me with both hands and said nothing. We ate standing— elbows touching, our breath fogging the same patch of mirror behind the liquor shelf. My tongue lit up mid-bite. Heat that made my eyes water the way they do when I say too much in a poem and no one cries. She nodded once like I’d passed some unspoken threshold, then wiped her fingers on the hem of my draft and said, now you’re getting it.