WEBVTT

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Well, I'm going to
begin a group of poems--

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love poems with
one that sort of--

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it's slantly, slantly unloved.

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titled, "My Hot Water Bottle."

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My hot water bottle,
my latest love.

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When it grows cold, I
won't have any sad feelings

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because I'll know I
need only pull out

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the stopper in its head
and pour out the cold,

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and pour in the hot.

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My ideal love.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It couldn't possibly
leave me, either.

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And when I grow tired of it, I
can put it aside and forget it,

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and a bottle would never
mourn or make me feel guilty.

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But what when it springs a hole
in its side and begins to leak?

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Then I'll think it does
not want to stay with me

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any longer, that it wants to be
left alone to grow old and rot

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and be thrown on a garbage heap.

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And I'll be sad for it, and
have to think of getting

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a new hot water bottle.

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I'll be the one who will
mourn, and the bottle

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will have no feelings
towards me at all.

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You can't win.

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[LAUGHTER]

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[APPLAUSE]

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