WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.410 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.410 --> 00:00:03.597 align:middle line:84%
This poem is called
My Wife's Upstairs.

00:00:03.597 --> 00:00:06.180 align:middle line:84%
It's probably the only real poem
I've ever written to my wife.

00:00:06.180 --> 00:00:08.640 align:middle line:84%
All the other wives in
my poem have been rented

00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:10.260 align:middle line:90%
for the purpose of the poem.

00:00:10.260 --> 00:00:19.700 align:middle line:90%


00:00:19.700 --> 00:00:20.585 align:middle line:90%
My wife's upstairs.

00:00:20.585 --> 00:00:23.920 align:middle line:90%


00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:28.390 align:middle line:90%
My wife's upstairs hard at work.

00:00:28.390 --> 00:00:34.210 align:middle line:84%
I don't understand what she
thinks about in that tiny room

00:00:34.210 --> 00:00:38.830 align:middle line:84%
looking out at the Apple
trees and ordinary field,

00:00:38.830 --> 00:00:41.140 align:middle line:90%
a thread of stream.

00:00:41.140 --> 00:00:44.560 align:middle line:84%
She's thinking of
something else.

00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:47.530 align:middle line:84%
It's a dreary day,
though the foliage

00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:52.150 align:middle line:84%
makes its first appearance
on the locust trees, bales

00:00:52.150 --> 00:00:56.600 align:middle line:84%
of hay stacked neatly
by the farmer's barn.

00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:59.920 align:middle line:84%
She's thinking of
something else.

00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:06.760 align:middle line:84%
Surrounded by books, strands
of hair I imagine in her eyes,

00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:13.390 align:middle line:84%
a gaze she offers the window,
a distance all her own.

00:01:13.390 --> 00:01:18.010 align:middle line:84%
Those books are long
journeys, train rides

00:01:18.010 --> 00:01:21.940 align:middle line:84%
through the Urals,
parlors in which lovers

00:01:21.940 --> 00:01:25.900 align:middle line:90%
meet, but can't openly speak.

00:01:25.900 --> 00:01:33.250 align:middle line:84%
In the next room, parents,
the police, a nosy concierge,

00:01:33.250 --> 00:01:36.220 align:middle line:90%
several kinds of intrigue.

00:01:36.220 --> 00:01:41.080 align:middle line:84%
She's so quiet as
to be invisible.

00:01:41.080 --> 00:01:46.720 align:middle line:84%
I put my ear to the
door, every sense alert.

00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:52.300 align:middle line:84%
So close I can almost
feel her pulse and breath.

00:01:52.300 --> 00:01:59.020 align:middle line:84%
But my wife's far away in that
room, out of the ordinary.

00:01:59.020 --> 00:02:05.140 align:middle line:84%
Fills that space with longing,
the aroma of fallen apples,

00:02:05.140 --> 00:02:09.719 align:middle line:84%
the space a single
room can't hold.

00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:18.345 align:middle line:90%