WEBVTT

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I should warn you, I'm going
to take a drink of water,

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then I'm going to warn you.

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I'll keep you in terror
as we all are these days.

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I have often had organized
poems around a conceit

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like all ekphrastic poems, all
based on artworks and taking

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the title of artworks.

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And in The Bride of E,
I used the alphabet,

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so a is for, b is for, and
then extended the alphabet

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by celebrating a
particular letter

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and using an alliterative title.

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And lately, because I've been
working on the translation,

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I haven't had time to think
about an organizing principle.

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So the poems that
do get written--

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I'm not sure how
they cohere together.

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But what I've noticed
lately is that they

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seem to be about the fact
that the world is leaning hard

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against all of us, and maybe
that's enough of a conceit.

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So that poem is an
example of that.

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And what I'm apologizing for
is their tone is sometimes sad.

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And nobody likes that.

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This is called "The Numbers."

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"I'm making a
strudel of bluebirds.

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A Pied Piper is
playing a strange song

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to the sound of a shredder
that's going non-stop.

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Each ordinal number's isolated.

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Each receipt gets eaten.

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Each is made safe.

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The dish is hot from the oven.

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The mesmerizing sound lulls
like a candle on a table

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makes a mirror of the eye.

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A knife draws a line
down the center.

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This is mine.

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This is yours.

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There is no way out.

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Every language gets
speckled with references

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to what it is to be after.

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Shredded, sleeping, eyes
closed, home-schooled to ignore

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what you don't want to see.

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Now, down the disposal of the
feathers, the unfed, the crust

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crumbs, the monogrammed
small plates

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stamped 'I' for
idiocy, mine and yours.

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After the fall of the wall,
I felt anything was possible.

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History would no longer exist.

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The mic goes out.

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The sound softens.

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The books burned down
to embers, then ash.

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The fever hospital closes
for lack of a solution

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to the seven deadly sins.

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Betrayal for one.

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Intolerance for two.

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Greed for three.

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Cruelty for four.

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Large cars for five.

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War for six.

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Suicide for seven, when
it kills more than one."

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