I told you there were no funny poems in the book.
You know what I mean.
I mean, I-- you know.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
There were some funny ones in there.
Because we're in Arizona I'm going
to read the next few poems in Yiddish.
[LAUGHTER]
''Gymnast in the Dark."
Something is wrong and you don't know what it is.
The ladder to your thoughts is where you left it.
The inventory of your feelings is cataloged and stacked.
The rooftops, which log your horizon at night,
billow the same smoke at morning.
Socks are in the drawer.
The bed is made.
Something is wrong and you don't know what it is.
Memories travel the same tunnel to reach you.
Voices find the same bridge to cross your empty space.
The people you know do not change
what you know about yourself.
Your shadows capture your weight.
The sun does not discriminate.
Something is wrong and you don't know what it is.
You enter every room.
You exit empty handed.
You ask the silence to invert itself
like a gymnast in the dark.
Your mind and your heart are one.
The body does not lie.
Something is wrong and you don't know what it is.
Light after light and you keep walking.
You turn corners and square your breath.
Night weighs the sky as oceans scale the rain.
You are part of the universe.
The universe is at sea.