WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.860 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.860 --> 00:00:07.610 align:middle line:90% Alison Deming 00:00:07.610 --> 00:00:13.200 align:middle line:84% Thank you so much, everybody for being together today. 00:00:13.200 --> 00:00:16.620 align:middle line:84% Steve was my colleague for about 21 years. 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:21.480 align:middle line:84% And I think all of us who had any time with him 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:26.850 align:middle line:84% in the last weeks of his life felt that it was such a gift. 00:00:26.850 --> 00:00:30.450 align:middle line:90% He taught us how to face death. 00:00:30.450 --> 00:00:36.070 align:middle line:84% And he showed us how to die in a way I never would have guessed. 00:00:36.070 --> 00:00:38.880 align:middle line:90% So I wrote a poem for Steve. 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:42.480 align:middle line:84% He had this amazing quality of making 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:46.770 align:middle line:84% you feel you were a more dear friend to him than you ever 00:00:46.770 --> 00:00:50.310 align:middle line:90% deserved to be. 00:00:50.310 --> 00:00:53.330 align:middle line:90% "The Toothbrush." 00:00:53.330 --> 00:00:57.230 align:middle line:84% "I'm trying to remember you without nostalgia, 00:00:57.230 --> 00:01:00.380 align:middle line:84% thieving your words and hoarding them, 00:01:00.380 --> 00:01:05.900 align:middle line:84% because all that I'm getting is the toothbrush you carried 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:09.770 align:middle line:84% in a mug every day, down the corridor, 00:01:09.770 --> 00:01:13.310 align:middle line:84% heading for the men's room, to commit 00:01:13.310 --> 00:01:19.340 align:middle line:84% a small act of resistance against break down. 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:20.870 align:middle line:90% I always laughed. 00:01:20.870 --> 00:01:23.150 align:middle line:84% You have the best hygiene of anyone 00:01:23.150 --> 00:01:26.630 align:middle line:84% in the department, which was a joke. 00:01:26.630 --> 00:01:29.330 align:middle line:84% Because the stink of cigarettes surrounded 00:01:29.330 --> 00:01:33.320 align:middle line:84% him like the fry oil of a prep cook. 00:01:33.320 --> 00:01:37.730 align:middle line:84% Still, something like tenderness inhered in the mug 00:01:37.730 --> 00:01:41.540 align:middle line:90% and its rigid little daisy. 00:01:41.540 --> 00:01:43.370 align:middle line:90% Here's how we met-- 00:01:43.370 --> 00:01:46.220 align:middle line:84% me on job interview fresh from New England, 00:01:46.220 --> 00:01:48.590 align:middle line:84% trying not to sweat in desert heat. 00:01:48.590 --> 00:01:53.690 align:middle line:84% You after friendly dinner with Gail and studio tour and poetry 00:01:53.690 --> 00:01:58.880 align:middle line:84% talk, driving me downtown in some big junk car with no AC, 00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:04.730 align:middle line:84% saying Barrio Hollywood and Hotel Congress and The Shanty. 00:02:04.730 --> 00:02:11.990 align:middle line:84% Then came the test, the story about a whore in Nogales 00:02:11.990 --> 00:02:17.180 align:middle line:84% who had a spiderweb tattooed around her pussy. 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:18.650 align:middle line:90% I'm sure that was the word. 00:02:18.650 --> 00:02:20.120 align:middle line:90% Offense was the point. 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:25.250 align:middle line:84% And I understood, implicit was the question-- 00:02:25.250 --> 00:02:29.390 align:middle line:84% does your poetry trump your politics? 00:02:29.390 --> 00:02:32.600 align:middle line:84% This was in those years when women were correcting men, 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:36.710 align:middle line:84% as if sex were a policy that could be rewritten in a pencil 00:02:36.710 --> 00:02:39.110 align:middle line:90% stroke. 00:02:39.110 --> 00:02:42.860 align:middle line:84% I passed, laughing it off. oh my God, you're kidding. 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:45.590 align:middle line:90% That's incredible. 00:02:45.590 --> 00:02:47.600 align:middle line:90% A poet can find wonder anywhere. 00:02:47.600 --> 00:02:51.320 align:middle line:84% And I did wonder how strong a woman had to be 00:02:51.320 --> 00:02:53.210 align:middle line:90% to take that kind of pain. 00:02:53.210 --> 00:02:56.300 align:middle line:90% 00:02:56.300 --> 00:02:58.700 align:middle line:90% Here's how we said goodbye. 00:02:58.700 --> 00:03:02.330 align:middle line:84% I came to visit you, the nurse recalibrating your drip as you 00:03:02.330 --> 00:03:04.520 align:middle line:90% ask, 'have I got any time?' 00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:08.330 align:middle line:90% And you, thumbs down, facing it. 00:03:08.330 --> 00:03:11.030 align:middle line:84% I saw you catch your breath, hand to throat 00:03:11.030 --> 00:03:16.670 align:middle line:84% beneath the black t-shirt, some event the hand would contain, 00:03:16.670 --> 00:03:24.590 align:middle line:84% some moment of self consolation like air was alien. 00:03:24.590 --> 00:03:28.190 align:middle line:84% Aurelie called it the weird majesty of death 00:03:28.190 --> 00:03:30.620 align:middle line:84% that had come over all of us, people 00:03:30.620 --> 00:03:35.360 align:middle line:84% gathering in a circle, each face reorganizing itself 00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:39.860 align:middle line:84% through the eyes of another's grief, as if to be animated 00:03:39.860 --> 00:03:46.340 align:middle line:84% were to violate the pure encroachment of the inanimate. 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:47.750 align:middle line:90% There was a kiss. 00:03:47.750 --> 00:03:49.700 align:middle line:84% Me walking into the bathroom and then 00:03:49.700 --> 00:03:52.280 align:middle line:84% to bed where you lay in shuttered afternoon light 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:55.730 align:middle line:84% Like others in the room, whatever privacy once meant, 00:03:55.730 --> 00:03:57.260 align:middle line:90% it meant no longer. 00:03:57.260 --> 00:04:03.410 align:middle line:84% And you seemed nothing but this invitation to tenderness. 00:04:03.410 --> 00:04:05.780 align:middle line:90% And what kiss was this? 00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:11.870 align:middle line:84% Not familial peck, not lovers' open-mouthed encroachment, not 00:04:11.870 --> 00:04:15.740 align:middle line:84% parental seal of approval, but the mouth 00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:22.280 align:middle line:84% opened by the final, so quiet need to say. 00:04:22.280 --> 00:04:27.340 align:middle line:84% There is nothing between us that needs to be cleaned away. 00:04:27.340 --> 00:04:36.288 align:middle line:90%