WEBVTT

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OK, this next poem--

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and forgive, the class who heard
it this morning, because I'm

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going to read it again--

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it references a Norse myth
of the demigod Aurvandill

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who was carried across the
icy wastes in a basket.

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And his big toe was sticking out
over the course of this journey

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and ended up
getting frostbitten.

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So it was broken off and
thrown up into the sky

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and became a star.

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So more cephalopods.

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"Love at 32 Degrees--

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One."

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"Today I dissected a squid, the
late acacia tossing its pollen

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across the black
of the lab bench.

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In a few months, the
maples will be bleeding.

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That was the thing.

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There was no blood,
only textures of gills

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folded like satin, suction
cups like planets in rows.

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'Be careful not to cut
your finger,' he says,

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but I'm thinking of fingertips
on my lover's neck last June,

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amazing hearts, this
branchial heart.

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After class, I stole one
from the formaldehyde

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and watched it
bloom in my bathroom

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sink between the cubes of ice."

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"Two."

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"Last night, I threw
my lab coat in the fire

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and drove all night
through the Arizona desert

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with a thermos full
of silver tequila.

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It was the last of what
we bought on our way

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back from Guadalajara,
desert wind

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in the mouth, your
mother's beat-up Honda,

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agaves twisting up from the soil
like the limbs of cephalopods.

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Outside of Tucson,
saguaros so lovely

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considering the cold and the
fact that you weren't there

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to warm me.

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Suddenly drunk, I
was shouting that I

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wanted to see the stars as my
ancestors used to see them,

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to see the god-awful blue as
Aurvandill's frostbitten toe."

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"Three."

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"Then there is the
astronomer's wife

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ascending stairs to her bed.

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The astronomer gazes
out one eye at a time

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to a sky that expands
even as it falls apart,

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like a paper boat dissolving in
bilge, furious, fuming stars.

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When his migraine builds
and lodges its dark anchor

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behind the eyes, he fastens the
wooden buttons of his jacket

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and walks outside
with a flashlight

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to keep company with the
barn owl who stares back

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at him with eyes that are no
greater or less than a spiral

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galaxy.

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The snow outside
is white and quiet

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as a woman's slip against
cracked floorboards.

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So he walks to the house
enflamed by moonlight

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and slips into the bed with
his wife, her hair and arms

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all in disarray like
fish confused by waves."

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"Four."

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"Science, beyond pheromones,
hormones, aesthetic bone,

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every time I make love
for love's sake alone,

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I betray you."

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