OK.
Can you all hear me?
Even those behind me?
Was it Wild Bill Hickok or Buffalo
Bill that didn't like to sit down in the cafe with someone
behind them.
He always liked his back to the wall.
Well, that's sort of the way I feel.
But anyway the first poem I'm going to read tonight
is called "To Poetry, A Letter".
It's certainly taken me most of my life
to admit how wrong I was about you.
When I was playing every day close I never really saw you.
But you didn't say a word, you were used to it.
Think of the time I spent with the others
when it was you summoning me in their throat.
Each small blue vein I traced on their flesh,
an unknown route still warm from your heart.
My face buried in her hair, I would
dream I was alone diving through great waves.
The whirlpools threatening with their green voices and liquid
syllables to drown me.
I could see men hurling great discuses of green water.
The man with a dog called Ecstasy kept beating her
until at last I begged him to stop and surprise myself
in the mirror with a stick.
Now when the rain falls and the hail on the bruised grass
instead of tears I celebrate each gray afternoon
that my window, your wine and my glass,
blushing like a daughter.