WEBVTT

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[CLAPPING]

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Thank you, Jim, and Frances, and
everyone at the Poetry Center.

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And thank you, you vast,
black swath of nothingness.

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I understand you're there,
but I can't see you.

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I'm going to read three
very different things to you

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this evening.

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The first is going to be the
beginning of a short story

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in Jack Kerouac is Pregnant,
which is by the way,

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for sale by a very
nice man in the hall.

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And it's actually coming out
in paperback in about 10 days,

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but he is going to rival
the paperback price for you

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tonight.

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So you can get one of these
classic, underground editions.

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This story is called
"Look at the Moon."

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"'What's wrong now?'

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The therapist asks.

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Samantha is a magazine on the
couch, colorful, well-edited,

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folded over.

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'It seems nothing has gone
wrong in my life, Bob.

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That's the problem.

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I was hoping to have had
some minor childhood trauma.

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I even had the man
picked out, that tall,

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red-haired friend of my father.

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That would explain my
aversion to red-haired men,

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but nothing has surfaced there.

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What's the point?

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Should we try hypnosis again?'

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'It's up to you, Samantha.

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I have some time next Tuesday
afternoon for a long session,

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and of course, the rate
is doubled per hour.'

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'Of course, you have that much
more of my unconscious to work

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with when I'm under.'

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The therapist looks like
her father and mother.

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He looks like her brother,
professor, and the girl

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in nursery school,
who punched and broke

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her tiny, bean-shaped nose.

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Samantha thinks for a
moment of her sex life.

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That is what's important
here, but sex for Samantha

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is watery as a desert mirage.

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Where is the thirsty traveler?

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'Do I look different
when I'm under hypnosis?'

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She coyly asks.

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'How do you think
you might look?'

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Responds the therapist,
stifling a yawn.

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Samantha thinks, I might look
like Ingrid Bergman or Tess

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of the D'urbervilles.

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She uncrosses and
re-crosses her legs,

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exposing, remembering,
and recovering

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a run in her stocking.

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She looks out the window.

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Oh, to be a bird.

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Writing the check,
her hand trembles.

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She is sorry to leave the
therapist, to whom she has just

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told a dream.

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She feels that paying for
this experience cheapens it.

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She now wishes she hadn't
mentioned the dream at all.

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For the favor of
an ear, she writes

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in the memorandum section.

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She smiles at the therapist's
crotch on her way to the door.

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Samantha sits on a
stool at the diner.

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Lawyers come here.

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She leans toward them
in an effort to hear.

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Jail terms-- they fascinate her.

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She spoons in ice cream,
meditating on the numbers, one

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month, eight months, 300 years.

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The man down the counter is
blowing his nose over and over.

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Victim of a romantic disaster?

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Perhaps, he needs a
friend, someone to talk to.

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Samantha imagines the
Eiffel Tower, marble tables,

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heads bent together
under an umbrella,

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and then the law reaches
her through the other ear.

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You would never find Samantha
in jail, never, never, never.

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Samantha sits in her apartment
and stares at the walls.

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She's got a closet
full of clothes,

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stained and threadbare.

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Lined up in a neat row,
her misshapen shoes

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conjure up the Depression era.

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Pictures from magazines
smugly stare out

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from plexiglass frames.

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These photos of
faraway places are

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centered on each white wall.

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Yes, Samantha is a
good and happy girl.

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And she is wearing her
white sweater, buttoned up

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to the neck, and her ankles are
bound or crossed at the ankles.

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'Hello', she says anxiously
after the phone rings once,

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and she's leapt from catatonia
to quick, hopeful attention.

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Perhaps, it is a secret admirer.

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'Grandma, how nice
of you to call.'

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Samantha surveys her
room, in her mind,

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putting away any
incriminating evidence,

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the paraphernalia of a life
rejected by the church.

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Samantha will ferret out any
sign of sloth or pleasure

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for its own sake, other than
small pleasures, of course.

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Pleasures so mean
that to enjoy them,

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one also wants to commit
suicide on the spot.

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No, her apartment
from this angle

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appears convincingly ascetic--

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only don't look at the
bed, hard and flat,

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covered with a natty, practical
throw, even the pillows,

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seemingly sewn to the
mattress, as if to prevent

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spontaneous reactions.

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Looking at that bed too
long would turn even a

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confirmed Catholic
girl into a slut.

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Samantha fingers the
crucifix around her neck.

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The old woman gave it
to her for confirmation

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15 or 20 years back.

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There's the tiniest
pinpoint of a diamond

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in the middle, craftily
embedded in a chiseled mirror.

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Samantha likes the diamond and
always thinks of it as the size

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it pretends to be.

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She never once
considered the cross just

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a cheap piece of metal.

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What could her grandmother
be calling for?

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To inquire about her health?

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What should she tell her?

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The crucifix-giver has
forgotten Samantha's address.

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She wants to send her a
birthday present, which means,

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as it does every
year, a card and $5.

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Samantha flips through her
address book, buoyed by lust.

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Her fingers stop at one
name, one Mark Braun.

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It is Thursday night,
well into the dinner hour.

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Surely, she could be
calling to reminisce,

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as civilized people do.

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Mark Braun was her
junior high paramour,

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a boy who first
impressed Samantha

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by walking down the school
hall with his butt in the air,

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leaning on a field hockey
stick and calling himself

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a constipated gym teacher.

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It's a stretch.

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Still, there is the
glamour, or the hunger,

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that makes calling
a man, even one

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who's dusty, crinkled condom
package she's picked up

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off the assembly hall
floor, a viable alternative

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to another early night alone
in the arms of her monkish bed

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covers.

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Samantha picks up
the phone and dials.

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Yes, it is a yes.

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Before she knows it, Samantha
is dressed for Saturday night.

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She's bought new
violet-colored contact lenses

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for the occasion.

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She wears her "Brattleby, the
Heart of Connecticut" t-shirt.

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Cupid's arrows have struck."

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