WEBVTT

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This next poem is
entitled "Odalisque."

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It came in a roundabout way
from a letter that I read,

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I think, in Playboy magazine
written into the Playboy

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advisor or some such thing,
in which a housewife had

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written in and said that she--

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do you people, want to sit down?

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You're not going to disturb
me if you try to find seats.

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She had written in and said that
she did her housework naked,

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and she was asking the
Playboy advisor if she

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was a pervert because of this.

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And I was stimulated
somewhat by this

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but imagining a whole
new class of peeping

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Toms who got up early
instead of late, right?

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But months later,
letters started

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pouring in from housewives
all over the place

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saying they also did
their housework naked,

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and I think that had
a huge impact upon me.

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So eventually, this
poem came out of it.

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The title is ironic.

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The title is "Odalisque."

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It's a Turkish word if
I remember correctly,

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referring to a girl who is
a harem girl and a slave

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girl at the same time.

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The woman in the poem-- a couple
of things I should explain

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in case they're not
completely clear--

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is pregnant, is doing
a housework naked.

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And the only thing
that she is wearing

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is a large chained
medallion, which has

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the head of a dog carved on it.

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"Odalisque"-- such
a common housewife.

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One only realizes the
insanities in one's poems

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after a period of
time has gone by.

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Vacuuming naked this
morning, balancing

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on her puffed white stomach
the silver head of a dog--

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a chained medallion--
she whispers desperately.

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The cold coin rises,
consciously taking her breath

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the morning right
out of her lungs.

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Eyes, red obsidian and black,
leap at her face, and the jaw

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snaps back against her
left breast and her heart.

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Is she whispering love me?

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The child in her
belly awakens, turns.

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Countess, lover, here I am
dangling from my watch chain.

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Over the sly wheeze
of the machine,

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it sucks at her heart
blindly as if in love.

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Both of them dream, then awake.

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The dog's head swings on
its chain forward and back.

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A cold hand on her chest.

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And pushing its legs deep within
her thighs, the child walks.

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