WEBVTT

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I'm going to read
new work tonight.

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Relatively new, that is.

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And unfortunately, most
of what I'm reading

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is on the long
side, so I will try

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not to wear out my welcome by
reading too much or too long.

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The first poem I'm going to read
is called "Semele Recycled,"

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which is perhaps a
more frivolous title

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than the poem should have.

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I've long been
interested in trying

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to read through the
incrustations of history

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and patriarchy back to what
the Greek myths must have been

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like in their prime,
and I've always

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been particularly interested
in the myth of Dionysus,

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because it is a very
curious story indeed,

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and you wonder what those
women were doing out

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on those Olympian
hillsides, anyhow.

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And was Dionysus,
even though, granted,

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somewhat androgynous, a man?

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My lesbian novelist
friend Bertha Harris

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insists that Dionysus was not
only a woman but a lesbian.

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I don't go that far,
but I am interested

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in this whole early myth,
probably one of the earliest

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that we have,
about dismemberment

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and reassemblement, a form
of the eternal return.

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And so I've written
about it in this form,

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and it is also a love poem.

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After you left me forever,
I was broken into pieces,

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and all the pieces
flung into the river.

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Then the legs crawled ashore
and aimlessly wandered

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the dusty cow track.

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They became, for a while,
a simple roadside shrine.

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A tiny table set up
between the thighs

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held a dusty candle,
weed and field flower

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chains placed reverently there
by children and old women.

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My knees were hung with
tin triangular medals

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to cure all forms of
hysterical disease.

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After I died forever
in the river,

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my torso floated
bloated in the stream,

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catching on logs or
stones among the eddies.

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Whitewater formed around
it, then dislodged it.

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After a whirlwind
trip, it bumped ashore.

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A grizzled old man
who scavenged along

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the banks had already rescued
my arms and put them by,

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knowing everything has
its uses sooner or later.

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When he found my torso,
he called it his canoe.

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And, using my arms
as paddles, he

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rode me up and down
the scummy river.

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When catfish nibbled my
fingers, he scooped them up

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and blessed his reusable bait.

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Clumsy but serviceable,
that canoe.

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The trail of blood
that was its wake

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attracted the carp and the eel
and the river turtles, easily

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landed, dazed by my tasty red.

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A young lad found my
head among the rushes

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and placed it on a dry stone.

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He carefully combed my
hair with a bit of shell

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and set small
offerings before it,

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which the birds and rats
obligingly stole by night,

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so it seemed I ate.

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And the breeze wound through
my mouth and empty sockets,

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so my lungs would sigh
and my dead tongue mutter.

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Soon the villagers came to
consult my oracular head

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with its water weed crown.

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Seers found occupation
interpreting sighs,

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and their papyrus
rolls accumulated.

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Meanwhile, young boys
retrieved my eyes

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they used for marbles
in a simple game,

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till somebody pretty
sister snatched at them

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and set them for luck
in her bridal diadem.

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Poor girl, when her future groom
caught sight of her, all eyes,

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he crossed himself in horror
and stumbled away in haste

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through her dowered meadows.

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What then of my heart and
organs, my sacred slit,

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which loved you best of all?

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They were caught in
a fisherman's net

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and tossed at night
into a pen for swine.

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But they shone so by moonlight
that the sows stampeded,

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trampled each other
in fear to get away,

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and the fisherman's wife,
who had 13 living children

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and was contemptuous of holy
love, scraped the rest of me

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onto the compost heap.

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Then, in their various
places and helpful functions,

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the altar, oracle,
awful canoe, and oars

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learned the wild
rumor of your return.

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The altar leapt up and ran to
the canoe, scattering candle

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grease and wilted grasses.

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Arms sprang to their sockets,
blind hands with nibbled nails

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grope their way, aided
by loud lamentation,

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to the bed of the bride,
snatched up those unlucky eyes

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and rammed them home.

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Oh, what a bright day it was.

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This empty body danced
on the riverbank.

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Hollow, it called, and
searched among the fields

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for those parts that steamed
and simmered in the sun,

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and never would have found them.

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But then, your great voice rang
out under the skies my name

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and all those private names
for the parts and places that

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had loved you best.

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And they stirred in their
nest of hay and dung.

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The distraught old ladies,
chasing their lost altar,

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and the seers pursuing my
skull, their lost employment,

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and the tumbling boys who
wanted the magic marbles,

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and the runaway groom and
the fisherman's 13 children

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set up such a clamor
with their cry of miracle

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that our two bodies met like
a thunderclap in midday,

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right to the corner
of that wretched field

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with its broken fence posts
and startled skinny cattle.

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We fell in a heap
on the compost heap

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and all our loving
parts made love at once,

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while the bystanders cheered
and prayed and hid their eyes

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and then went decently
about their business.

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And here it is moonlight again.

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We've bathed in the river,
and are sweet and wholesome

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once more.

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We kneel side by
side in the sand,

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we worship each
other in whispers.

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But the inner parts
remember fermenting hay,

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the comfortable odor of dung,
the animal incense and passion,

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its bloody labor, its birth,
and rebirth, and decay.

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