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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you so much for
that lovely introduction.

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I just want to say I'm so
happy to be here tonight.

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It's such an honor to read.

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And I am so grateful
that you guys are here.

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So thank you for coming.

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And I really can't
say enough good things

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about the Poetry Center, who
is such a vibrant and valuable

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part of this community.

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So thank you all for
the work that you do.

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I also want to
dedicate this book.

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This book is dedicated to my
parents who, in many ways,

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made it possible.

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I'm actually going to be reading
from pages because I still

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am not used to the book itself.

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I've spent so many
years with the poems

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on paper that that's
how I'm going to read.

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And I'm going to kind
of skip around in here,

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too, so that I
don't overwhelm you

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with my love of cephalopods.

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Only one dose.

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So, weekends.

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"Crypsis and Mimicry."

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"Crypsis for the way
that things are hidden,

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how certain small truths
disappear against a larger

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truth, the way my
Cajun friend explains

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bouillabaisse as the synthesis
of red snapper and crab,

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oysters, mussels, and crayfish,
garlic and orange peel,

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dry white wine, a
fusion of the senses.

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So autumn slips into the swamp
lands with glossy alligator

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eyes.

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We talk of love potions while
drinking cafe noir, powdered

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lizards and tender missives
scrawled with blood,

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how her grandmother crushed
peach seeds with stones

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to draw dirt to the bottom
of a pail of Bayou water.

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A speckled fish could flatten
itself against those sediments

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and simply fade away.

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She used to dream there
was a hole in the bucket,

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and so the task
was never ending.

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That's crypsis.

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Everything against intrinsic
terrain dissolves in it.

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Mimicry is different.

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It's you stroking my
throat as if I'm a bird.

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It's me pretending in
your arms to be a bird.

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I am not a bird.

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I remember reading how the
Curies' laboratory would

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glow at night.

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Marie wrote of the enchantment
of those luminous silhouettes.

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I used to believe
that science was only

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concerned with certainty.

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Later, I recognized its mystery.

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There isn't language
for it, the way

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I can see you when
you were shining,

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our roots crypsis,
our wings mimicry."

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