WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:01.605 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:00:01.605 --> 00:00:04.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.870 --> 00:00:09.360 align:middle line:84% I'm going to kind of reverse the usual order of poetry readings 00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:13.988 align:middle line:84% and read a new poem first, and then read things from my book. 00:00:13.988 --> 00:00:15.780 align:middle line:84% And then I'm also going to read some prose. 00:00:15.780 --> 00:00:18.480 align:middle line:84% But I wanted to get this out of my system 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.460 align:middle line:84% right away, not just because it's a new poem, 00:00:20.460 --> 00:00:24.300 align:middle line:84% but because of your goofy weather. 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:27.840 align:middle line:84% I just have to read something to get the snow in here. 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:28.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:28.860 --> 00:00:31.170 align:middle line:84% I can't believe what you're getting away with here. 00:00:31.170 --> 00:00:37.740 align:middle line:84% It's just not right, and I've brought the winter, I hope. 00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:42.090 align:middle line:90% This poem is called Coldness. 00:00:42.090 --> 00:00:45.210 align:middle line:84% Last night, the new snow lay glittering. 00:00:45.210 --> 00:00:47.220 align:middle line:90% Shavings of mica. 00:00:47.220 --> 00:00:52.230 align:middle line:84% Unreal, individual, more beautiful than snow. 00:00:52.230 --> 00:00:54.330 align:middle line:90% More cold. 00:00:54.330 --> 00:00:57.180 align:middle line:84% We'll take a walk in this, I thought. 00:00:57.180 --> 00:00:59.940 align:middle line:84% But you were already in bed asleep. 00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:04.200 align:middle line:84% The new humidifier whirred next to you in the dark. 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.830 align:middle line:90% The room was wet as a petal. 00:01:07.830 --> 00:01:11.400 align:middle line:84% You lay curved under the blanket, scooping for warmth. 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:14.010 align:middle line:84% I get cold, you told me one summer. 00:01:14.010 --> 00:01:16.620 align:middle line:90% I get colder than other people. 00:01:16.620 --> 00:01:19.300 align:middle line:90% It's from my childhood. 00:01:19.300 --> 00:01:21.570 align:middle line:84% And there was a story about a too-thin jacket, 00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:25.020 align:middle line:84% and nobody believing you, and wind, and disillusion. 00:01:25.020 --> 00:01:29.640 align:middle line:84% Afternoons, you sat reading on the living room radiator. 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:32.760 align:middle line:84% Some nights, when I get in bed, you say out of your sleep, 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:34.200 align:middle line:90% I'm cold. 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:35.940 align:middle line:90% And I tell you the truth. 00:01:35.940 --> 00:01:37.110 align:middle line:90% Your skin is hot. 00:01:37.110 --> 00:01:39.120 align:middle line:90% You're not cold. 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:42.420 align:middle line:84% Well, you're cold, you say, and fall asleep, 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:45.750 align:middle line:90% sullen as a cube in a tray. 00:01:45.750 --> 00:01:49.030 align:middle line:84% I never did believe you got colder than other people. 00:01:49.030 --> 00:01:51.000 align:middle line:84% And when you said you were hungry the day 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:53.400 align:middle line:84% we drove on the endless freeway, I 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:56.790 align:middle line:84% told you to pretend you were eating a sandwich. 00:01:56.790 --> 00:01:59.976 align:middle line:84% When you're hungry, you said, we eat. 00:01:59.976 --> 00:02:01.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:05.910 align:middle line:84% I'm afraid of sympathy as if it were a collar tightening, 00:02:05.910 --> 00:02:08.160 align:middle line:90% but alone, I see you. 00:02:08.160 --> 00:02:11.220 align:middle line:84% Your body last night was no more body 00:02:11.220 --> 00:02:14.970 align:middle line:84% than a curl of cold butter on a bread plate. 00:02:14.970 --> 00:02:21.750 align:middle line:84% It was hunched bitterly, silent with regret, alone in our bed. 00:02:21.750 --> 00:02:24.930 align:middle line:84% How beautiful, then, the accumulated privacies 00:02:24.930 --> 00:02:26.820 align:middle line:90% of your sleeping face. 00:02:26.820 --> 00:02:29.670 align:middle line:84% How glad I was that you slept and did not 00:02:29.670 --> 00:02:35.280 align:middle line:84% have to love the starry coldness I had planned for you. 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:37.200 align:middle line:84% So I wouldn't really bring star-- 00:02:37.200 --> 00:02:37.710 align:middle line:90% what is it? 00:02:37.710 --> 00:02:38.440 align:middle line:90% So-- 00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:38.940 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:38.940 --> 00:02:39.440 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:02:39.440 --> 00:02:43.110 align:middle line:90% 00:02:43.110 --> 00:02:46.000 align:middle line:84% I really don't have any starry coldness planned for you. 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:49.680 align:middle line:84% I'll leave you alone in your fool's paradise down here, 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:51.310 align:middle line:90% where it's so wonderful. 00:02:51.310 --> 00:02:53.390 align:middle line:90% I just love it.