WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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And now I'll read
from the sonnet crown.

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And like I said, don't worry
I'm not reading all 15 of them.

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I'll begin with a poem set
in Buenos Aires, Argentina

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in the year 1945.

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And the imagined speaker of
this sonnet is Eva Perón.

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And I'm imagining that
she is proposing to Juan.

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I'm taking some small liberties
with history in this one.

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So this is "Five," 1945.

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"Don't lie about
abandoned ground.

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I come from there.

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This veranda is better.

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In its vista
stricken with rain we

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can see our Valenciennes copied
by thunderheads over the city.

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Buenos Aires.

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Clear evenings, I watch
lovers linger in the park,

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embracing each other,
but fingering the dark.

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Some quicken at curfew
without going in.

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Sometimes I drive from the
city through the bombas

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or the South.

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I've memorized the
never-never of this terrain--

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cerulean rise,
blizzarding ravine,

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laws dictated must be obeyed.

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I walk among my people
counting off mouths

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beneath the gallows tree.

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They won't come for me.

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I'm not a sham.

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I am not afraid."

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"Six."

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United States,
also here in 1945.

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Lady days, Hollywood
earthquakes.

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"Unafraid, no sham in white
satin that day you almost

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died, smoking away your
toothache beneath the palm

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tree.

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That came crashing down just
after Matt pushed you aside.

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And you, songbird, flew, as
the quake crashed the party

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and created rolling waves.

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Chandeliers liquefied.

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Split slope.

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The pool water bubbling
over like the champagne

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you sipped through your first
earthquake with Bob Hope.

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And you hated champagne,
though you still,

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with each tune, sip air.

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Then give it back and
sighs and murmurs now

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stored whispering to
Frank and everyone

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alongside your keyboard,
to the very Earth breaking

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blue beneath your voice.

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Sing again, your flight,
the day you did not die--

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almost a world of
word to slip through.

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Not your time yet, lady.

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Though we've heard ever
since, in your breath,

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filled with blues and
motherland opening."

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"Seven."

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500 years before--

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Spain, Aragon--
Katharine betrothed.

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"Infanta in her homeland
far from death and the veils

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she'll wear for the
journey between Spain

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and the country to which
she's been betrothed.

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Just barely in their nudity--

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three years old, and
diapered, and a title--

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Princess of Wales.

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Ringing princess and
dais, a full tournament

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regales the ambassadors
who, to save their dynasty,

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spare no bombast.

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They leave keeping heraldry
on her red gold head.

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In the midst of pageantry
bells floating Spanish galleons

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across the sea, where she,
fast 14, behind a veil,

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meets the seventh Henry and
becomes the first of six

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Queens taken by his son--

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five discarded, two beheaded.

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Now she's greeting
everyone, and England

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loves her, veil and all.

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The ball and banquet.

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Henry bends to raise her
bat and face a silhouette."

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"Eight."

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500 years later,
Argentina, La Boca.

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"When he goes down she kicks up
her flitting silhouette spikes

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heel to toe for him to climb
up the terra firma of her split

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splitting thigh--

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a slippery vision in such steps,
backward ochos of evasion--

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then rush and murmur of advance.

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Each blink a bet; each
salida snaps a threat;

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the fugitive sweet
nothings in this dance--

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vaguely avian but made for men--

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all cocky preening in
a sure wide stance.

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Still, for her, all get little
give, some sidling bandoneóns,

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a shift of shins.

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Then stripped dipping, deadpan.

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They trade tokens of
affection-- stiff upper lip

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for jaw locked to mask.

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Hand grasps hand.

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His hand clasps her back.

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Her hands transects
his fancy slant.

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All the silver gestures
relinquished and taken,

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ask of the body.

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This answer, this dance.

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This steady barely
checked hex unsashed.

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This hush, this rushing, this
fight, and flight floored.

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This lusty nunc stans,
ravished accord."

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