You might call it a poultry reading.

In the midst of an evening of poetry, storytelling, garbanzo bean salad and rice pudding at Karella’s on Newkirk Street in southeast Baltimore, a young Latina ran out of her rowhouse in pursuit of a rooster. As it jumped the curb and into the brick street, she swooped down and grabbed the cock by the neck. Pet bird safely in her arms, the girl smiled at the writers who’d come out to applaud and went inside.

It was one of those “only in Baltimore” moments, reminding me of good times once had at Miss Bonnie’s Elvis Bar (now an ugly, renovated private home) at the corner of Fleet and Port streets below Patterson Park. Miss Bonnie – Alabama-born Lavonda Hunt; barmaid, proprietor and sole resident of Graceland on the Patapsco – indulged us mightily in the late 1980s.