WEBVTT

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This is a poem called
"Gallery" that I

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wrote when I graduated
from NYU and was wandering

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around New York City--

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friendless, jobless,
homeless, as sometimes

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happens in New York.

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This is a piece
called "Carlisle."

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It's from my book Bright Felon
and this is the part that's

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multi-genre or between genres.

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It's either poetry or memoir,
likely both or neither.

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And the math in it is correct
and the astronomy in it

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is correct in case you were
curious, and the history in it

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is correct too.

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In fact Carlisle
is the town that I

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lived in Central Pennsylvania.

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"Because what I think is
that this tender beast,

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brown skinned animal,
grotesque, and lustful

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is me and my immortal
soul besides.

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In Carlisle, I have
two writing desks

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on opposite sides of the room.

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Both of these I bought with
money from my first real job

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when I moved North of
the city to Rhinebeck.

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A part of the story I
haven't gotten to yet,

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although it was
already years ago.

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Always in the broken story,
there is more to tell.

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Mornings I rise in the cold
and walk two blocks down

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to the old colonial
graveyard to read

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history in the broken stones,
names sometimes worn away.

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The stories of first wives,
second wives, dead infants,

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unmarked who's.

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The history of any
place for me is simple.

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A routes between my home
on South Bedford Street

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across the main intersection
to the coffee shop

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on the corner of
Pitt and high street.

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The other compass points are
the independent bookstore,

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the house on Hanover Street
where Marianne Moore used

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to live, and a strange
park that was once

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a graveyard on the
North side of town.

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A place where the land was
broken and the bones disturbed.

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Details on the display
plaques in that

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park are sketchy, and will
lead me into shadowed places--

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the town records,
rooms I've never been.

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But I don't discover this small
park near the railroad tracks

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with its distressing history
until I've lived in the town

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more than seven months.

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In the body of a tree,
I hear a resonance

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while out in space,
between planets

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lie the cause of planets.

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An iron fence grows through
the heart of the tree.

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I pass it every day on
the morning when I walk.

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You were saying something?

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You hardly pass a
night that winter

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without sneaking
out into the hallway

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and turning up the thermostat
four or five degrees.

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What I learned is
that each asteroid

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is held in careful place
by a partner in space,

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and that if such a
body didn't exist,

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the orbital patterns
of the same can

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be extrapolated graphically.

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A discovery which pleases me
almost as much as the day I

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learned that every
cubic equation actually

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has an associated modular form.

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But is the reverse true?

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And what has all this to do
with Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

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once a frontier
town, but constructed

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at the frontier
with specific intent

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to push the borders
of Pennsylvania State

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out to Cumberland paths.

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I wrote an autobiography
once in letters,

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in which I found myself unable
to actually say anything.

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So I tried saying it
in two or three or four

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different versions,
repeating the chapters

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in different variations
so I could speak out

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of different sides of my mouth,
not because I wanted to evade,

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but because I didn't know
what really happened.

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To live in a frontier town
at any rate or a town that

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was built on what was
supposed to be the frontier.

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Later, all the
promises were broken

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and the settlements spread
out into the territories.

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It is always the broken that
holds the universe in place.

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That is what I would say
about poetry and prayer

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that God or audience,
the intended

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direction of both of these,
we wish and wish are real.

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In the mornings of the late
fall when it is cold enough

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to feel the winter beginning,
I would leave the house

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very early and walk
South on Bedford

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street into the old
cemetery, the closest

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place you come to in America, to
a city piled on top of a city.

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Not like that in Cairo, where
the city sediment hid itself,

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and we walk down
the Greek streets,

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saw churches hidden underground
accessible only by otherwise

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unmarked staircases
and empty courtyards.

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Through the cemetery,
I read the fate

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of the village, the
deaths, the family trees,

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the broken headstones,
how we will all break.

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When I speak about
my body's life,

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I know it is brothered and
descended from, but do not

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know if blood will
descend from my blood.

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Does a family break?

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Or can they, like water,
evaporate and condense?

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And so will I then be a father
in a million different ways?

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Leaving the cemetery, I walk
through the old districts

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to the North side of town.

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And after crossing the railroad
tracks, find a park there,

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which is really another
cemetery or was,

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the graves now all
dug up replaced

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by the small green square.

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As I walk, I realized likely
the bodies and bones remain

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deep underground dissipating.

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And you know without
explanation whose graveyard

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that was, that was torn up.

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You must understand
the color of their skin

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that enabled their
desecration, and what station

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they occupied in this
community while they lived.

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Why should I spell out
every little thing?

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There are things about a
person's body you do not know,

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the things it craves and loves.

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All the sordid things we could
never tell, the cheap ones,

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tawdry, paltry, Carlisle,
where soldiers are

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trained and Indians were
brought to be forced to forget.

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Never did I think
when I arrived there

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that it would be the place I
would sort myself out and dare

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actually to speak.

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Nothing happened there but time.

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Going in the morning to the
coffee shop to read or write,

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how ordinary the most
important things are?

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The green copper
roofs of the buildings

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against the steel blue gray of
the Central Pennsylvania sky.

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You could look at
anything and understand.

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In the sky, in the
rain wet streets,

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in the palm of your hand,
is always what you promised.

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What you promised
is to understand.

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I thought I wouldn't get
there unless I spoke,

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unless I told about
the people I loved.

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The picture I drew against
the corner of the room.

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I'm trying to tell you
how ridiculously hard

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it was to even try to open
my mouth to make words,

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let alone sentences, how fully
silence can fill every space.

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To drown in a river or
to lift the water up

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and let the drowning
be your guide.

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I trudge along the street
unbaptized and criminal

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according to some
religious laws--

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lonely brother, middle
child, only son.

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Is this written on your skin?

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My friend asked.

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Is that why you could
never go to pilgrimage?

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Never go to Mecca?

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Why is it I would
want to go to Mecca?

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Because they're a stone
fell from the sky?

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Well, more importantly
than that small thing,

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that is where a mother
refused to believe.

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A mother refused to
believe the obvious.

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I am alone in the
desert with my son.

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His breath rattles
in his throat.

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We have been left here
by the patriarch who

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promised to return.

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He left us, and we were
promised by God to safety.

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This is the question of
faith on the frontier.

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You were promised
deliverance yet

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there you are no water in sight.

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Do you sit and
wait for the angel

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to either spell it
out into your ears

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or perhaps write
it onto your skin?

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Yet I think it is
already written

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on my face, written into
every corner as many times

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as I could say it.

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There must be water
around here somewhere,

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yet it isn't panic to
leave a baby even then

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in the moment of dying.

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Is it?

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And that is how it happened.

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God wouldn't spell it out.

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Rather, the water
came exactly where

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she put the boy down
after she risked it

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all for the impossible
water in the desert.

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In the desert, the
mother was left.

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She had to decide, do you wait
for God to tell you what to do

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or do you panic?"

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