WEBVTT

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And this last poem is for Alex.

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"Risk."

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"In the dream, I'm
given a monkey heart

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and told to be careful how I
love because of the resulting

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infection.

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Suddenly, a hard boiled
egg with no yolk,

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I pitch down a great
hill in a holy city

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past the flaming
beakers of ethanol,

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the lapis bowls in which
science would peel me apart.

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And when I skid into a
fleshy patch of grass,

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I unroll into a grub, a grub
with the mind of a girl,

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a girl with the
lips of an insect.

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A voice says, 'Metamorphosis
will make you ugly.'

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I answer, 'Radiance
will change its name.'

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In the heat, I squirm and
shrug out of my summer suit

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and, breathless, split
into a cotton dress.

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It is almost evening.

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There are fireflies.

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On the lawn of my
childhood house,

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an operating table, doctors,
a patient under a sheet.

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I walk up.

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Under the webbing of IVs, a
surgeon hands me a silver comb

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and I start brushing the
patient's hair like I did

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my mother's when I was a girl.

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The nurse lifts the sheet.

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It isn't my mother.

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It's the monkey.

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I bend my ear to its
dying lips and it

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says, 'You haven't much time.

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Risk it all.'"

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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