Well, I'm going to begin a group of poems--
love poems with one that sort of--
it's slantly, slantly unloved.
titled, "My Hot Water Bottle."
My hot water bottle, my latest love.
When it grows cold, I won't have any sad feelings
because I'll know I need only pull out
the stopper in its head and pour out the cold,
and pour in the hot.
My ideal love.
[LAUGHTER]
It couldn't possibly leave me, either.
And when I grow tired of it, I can put it aside and forget it,
and a bottle would never mourn or make me feel guilty.
But what when it springs a hole in its side and begins to leak?
Then I'll think it does not want to stay with me
any longer, that it wants to be left alone to grow old and rot
and be thrown on a garbage heap.
And I'll be sad for it, and have to think of getting
a new hot water bottle.
I'll be the one who will mourn, and the bottle
will have no feelings towards me at all.
You can't win.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]