[APPLAUSE]
Long live punk rock.
Thank you.
Leslie Silko probably needs no introduction here,
a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship
and a Pulitzer Prize, a resident of Tucson
for more than 20 years.
She's the author of books of poetry, fiction, essays,
memoir, and more, including Laguna Woman, a book of verse.
Ceremony, a novel that the poet James Wright
called a perfect work of art.
Also, "Yellow Woman" and "A Beauty
of the Spirit," which is a collection of essays,
and the epic called "Almanac of the dead,"
which is eloquent, harrowing, complex,
and as The New York Times wrote, bravura storytelling.
And then somebody told me in a late night gathering
last weekend, ought to be required
reading for everyone in Tucson.
Her new novel is Garden in the Dunes,
but I understand she's going to read something
from the New Century tonight.
Among her work, I particularly love a small volume
from Graywolf Press, a book of letters called The Delicacy
and Strength of Lace.
It's a correspondence between Leslie Silko
and the poet James Wright.
And it's a remarkably compassionate and exquisitely
literary exchange carried out in the last months
of Wright's life and illuminated by the foreknowledge
of his death.
The two speak about storytelling and its power.
And Silko writes about the use of stories in her own Laguna
Pueblo tradition.
At "Laguna," she says, "whenever something
happens happy or sad or strange, that vast body
of remembered stories is brought forth.
And by the time, people get done telling you
about all the others who have lost wagons and whole teams
of horses in the quicksand.
You aren't feeling nearly so bad about spending
an entire Saturday digging your bay mares out."
And so it is that stories can have power over death even.
At "Laguna," Leslie writes, "when someone dies,
you don't get over it by forgetting.
You get over it by remembering.
And one remembers in the form of stories."
This, I think, speaks to the usefulness of literature,
to its importance in community, and to its capacity to heal.
And this is the gift-- one of the gifts
that Leslie Marmon Silko gives us through her work,
this gift of remembrance of healing of transcendence
over suffering through art.
In one letter to her, James Wright closes by saying,
"I am very happy that you are alive and writing books, so am
I. And I hope you are too."
And so please welcome Leslie Marmon Silko.
[APPLAUSE]
I can fix this for you.
Can you fix it?
Yeah.
All right.
That works?
OK, great.
Thank you.
Well, I'm amazed to see so many people out here tonight.
I don't know what I thought what kind of gathering
I thought it would be.
I was mostly excited about an opportunity
to showcase Daryl Ross Begay's work and more than ever
as the time goes by, anxious to have the new wave of foot
soldiers to come in and let some of us old folks
go off and sit in the sun.
And so that tonight, I think it's--
for me, it's mainly a celebration of the new work.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm a little bit--
I wasn't expecting so many people.
So [LAUGHS] what I thought I would do
is I brought some new work, this very sketchy, messy,
and in progress.
But I thought, well, I've done that before.
Here at the University of Arizona,
I always bring things I'm working on,
and then seven or eight years later, they finally shape up.
But before I do that, I thought I'd do a little bit--
read a little bit from Gardens in the Dunes,
the novel that came out last year.
And it was set approximately a 100 years ago,
so that the action begins around 1895.
I created a fictional tribe of Colorado--
a fictional tribe of Colorado River
Indian people in part to commemorate those tribes which
were completely wiped out, those cultures
that completely disappeared not long after the incursion
of the miners and ranchers.
And it's a part of Arizona history
that just doesn't get told because it's so nasty and ugly.
They did not have to send the US troops into the Colorado River
drainage areas to eradicate the people.
The tribes that lived in those areas were very humble.
They were mostly involved with just trying
to make a living in the desert.
And so we don't even have a US Army records or government
records of the disappearance of these people.
So I decided to imagine--
I imagine these two sisters, two young sisters,
and they are among the last of their people.
And it's right around the turn of the century.
And a lot of the action is set around Needles, California.
And my characters go up and down the Colorado River.
The younger sister, Indigo, gets taken off
to the Sherman Institute, an Indian School in Riverside.
Indigo, it is-- gets runs off, is
befriended by this white woman, Hattie and her husband.
And Indigo gets to go to Europe for the summer.
While she's in Europe, her older sister, Sister Salt,
is back along the Colorado River.
And in 1901, 1902, they were building
a dam on the Colorado River.
And they began to construct the Aqueduct, that
first diverted Colorado River water to Los Angeles.
And this is where we find sister Salt. Sister
Salt has met a wonderful Black Indian, Big Candy.
And she's pregnant.
Big Candy works for the construction boss,
and so this is a section from there.
And then, when I finish this section,
I'll read you a little bit from my sketchy, strange new work
that I've been working on.
"At first, she had difficulty understanding
the language her baby spoke to her from the womb,
but then she recognized the sand lizard
words pronounced in baby talk.
She had not heard the sand lizard
language spoken for a long time, except in dreams.
To hear the baby, Sister Salt had to wait until early morning
before dawn after the night shift quit,
but before the day crews started.
She lay as still as she could, holding her breath.
And if the baby was awake and turning restlessly,
then she could hear it talk.
How its voice reached her ears was a mystery.
She did not tell Maytha or Vedna because they
were likely to blame the voice on witches.
Sister Salt talked to the baby whenever it kicked and moved
inside her.
She told the little sand lizard about their home
and the gardens and the dunes where she and indigo used
to play games.
There it was peaceful at night with no drunks or fights
to send men falling against the tents.
She could feel her baby's impatience grow more urgent.
The baby did not like the noise and the dust.
The place was not safe.
"No place is safe," she told the baby.
The baby wanted her to leave it once for the old gardens.
How could she leave without Indigo?
Indigo was still a child, but she is not your baby like I am.
You don't breathe for her.
You breathe for me.
Most days, he was so busy, Candy did not come to her tent
until after midnight.
And even then, he was only taking a break.
The gambling tents were full of players, and sales of beer,
and barbecued meat were non-stop.
She did not see as much of Maytha and Vedna
after she quit the laundry.
The pregnancy caused her to sleep more,
and the Twins got busier as more workers
arrived to finish the dam.
Maytha and Vedna knew Sister Salt wanted company.
But usually, by the time they bathed in the laundry tent
after work to take advantage of the clean, warm water,
their dates arrived before they had a chance to visit her.
Sundays were days of rest not because Maytha or Vedna were
Christians, but because preachers and missionaries
descended on the construction camp for Sunday services
and scared off their dates.
So the three of them decided Sundays
would be their day together.
After they ate, they talked and laughed
as they took turns combing and braiding new satin
ribbons into their hair.
They were best friends now, and the twins teased each other,
saying they wished Sister Salt were their twin, not the other.
The camp was a dump, Maytha said.
And Vedna and Sister Salt had to agree with her.
All the noise and dust drifted to their tents.
They were getting tired of sex along the river week
after week with the same sweaty workers who
never changed what they did.
Sex with these men was boring and tedious.
Luckily, the twins had saved almost enough money
to retire forever before they died of boredom here.
It's so bad, Vedna started to read
the Bible, all the sexy parts in the Old Testament.
The three of them laughed together.
Vedna reminded them about the weird stories too.
Those are even better than the sex, chariots of fire,
beasts with seven heads.
The Bible was the only book of Vedna
could find to practice her reading.
They had gone to school and learned
to read when they lived in Winslow with their father.
Their Chemehuevi people were troubled
because their father wasn't Chemehuevi.
He had been from Laguna, Pueblo, working on the railroad
and was already married with children
when he met their mother.
Still, he took them in after their mother died but kept them
away from Laguna and Winslow.
Their father was killed in a railroad accident
when they were 13, old enough to go back to their mother's
people on their own.
Only one old auntie, their grandmother's sister,
welcomed them inside and poor things she didn't have much--
a tiny stone house on a dry floodplain
of tumbleweeds and river gravel south of needles.
The government took away her farmland
on the river to lease out to white men.
Maytha and Vedna like to say they had only two living
relatives in Arizona-- their old auntie and Sister Salt. Later,
Sister had to lie down because her back ached from the baby's
constant turning.
Candy looked in on her and was concerned about her discomfort.
He didn't want anything to harm his first child.
His huge hands gently closed around both of her hands,
and he kissed the top of her head.
He was sorry he was so busy.
He could see something was wrong.
Nothing was wrong.
She was only listening to the baby.
Candy exhaled and glanced down at her belly.
He had to take Wylie the evening receipts.
He wanted to know how the baby could talk,
how she could hear it when it was so tiny,
but questions would have to wait until he got back."
Then I'm going to skip a section here
where Wiley is Candy's boss, Wiley
is a construction crew man.
And the basis of their relationship
is food and big candies, cooking.
And so I'll skip over that.
Anyway, well, Candy-- while Candy's off with Wiley,
Sister Salt is alone.
Time goes by.
I'm skipping around.
"Sister Salt was lying down that evening when Maytha and Vedna
surprised her they had big grins on their faces
because they just counted it all up
and realized they'd made all the money they needed to buy land.
Very soon, they'd be leaving this noisy dump for good.
They invited her to come with them.
They weren't going right away, in a month or two.
Think about it.
After they went back to their tent,
her eyes filled with tears.
I am the only one who will wait for you, dear little Indigo,
she whispered that night before she went to sleep.
Now, both the baby and its father wanted to leave.
And the twins were going too.
See, Sister Salt is waiting for Indigo to come back.
She's trying to find her sister.
The baby was big enough to be seen in her belly,
so she only had sex with big Candy now, otherwise,
the baby's features might resemble other mens.
The cloth of her smock shifted just a bit
as the baby kicked and turned.
The baby wanted her to eat sand lizard food, not
all this animal grease and cooked food.
Big candy wanted a big strong son
and insisted she eat plenty of meat.
And each night, he brought back big platters of leftovers--
beef rib roasts, and stuffed pork loins and bowls piled high
with orange yams and stewed okra.
But now, the odor of meat and its grease made her nauseous.
She ate the okra and yams but pushed the meat aside.
Why should I talk to you when you
don't feed me the food I need?
The baby turned and turned but didn't speak again.
The baby worried her, and she decided to confide
and Maytha and Vedna.
But when she went by the laundry,
the wash tubs were turned upside down, and the fires were out.
And the twins were nowhere to be found.
They must have found a ride going North
and went to visit their old auntie who was ailing,
so she decides to take a walk.
It wasn't too hot yet.
A walk would do her good.
She left behind the river for the Sandyhills
above to gather wild greens.
The construction noise has receded as she walked,
so she kept going until she no longer heard
anything but the wind and the metal arcs and the rice grass.
She had not planned to walk so far without her gourd canteen,
but her legs kept going.
And the farther she went, the better she felt.
Even the baby stopped turning so much.
Distanced up a dry wash, she found a coyote melon vine
snaking through the rice grass and thistles.
At the first sweet taste of melon,
she was overwhelmed by memories of the sweet yellow melons
they shared the last autumn they were all together.
The salt of her tears made her cheeks itch.
They had been so happy together that sunny afternoon
a few months before the crows and then the dancers came.
That last afternoon, the melons sugar
stuck their fingers together.
And they squealed with delight as they pulled them apart.
She ate one melon and then another like a starving person
until her hands and even the strands of her hair
were sticky.
Her stomach felt too full and unsettled.
She sat with her arms across her belly protectively
and waited for the cramp to pass.
Grandma always warned them not to eat too much too fast.
The baby must like this sand lizard food
because it didn't complain.
She lay back on the fine sand to take a rest.
The sky here was pure endless turquoise,
and the air here smells so clean,
unmoored by the dust and smoke of the construction.
The sun was moving lower in the sky,
but she didn't want to turn back yet.
What else was there growing wild in this sandy wash
ready to eat?
She walked a distance farther up the wash,
and sure enough, she found a stand of sunflowers, many
still in bloom but others gone to seed.
Her stomach felt uncomfortably full.
But at the same time, she felt so hungry
she crammed handfuls of dry seeds
into her mouth hulls and all.
Mmm, the flavor in her mouth was so rich and delightful.
She swallowed despite how full her stomach felt.
She couldn't spit them out and waste them.
A short distance beyond the sunflower,
she spotted bright, red fruit of a chili pepper plant.
Once someone must have had a garden here,
and a few seeds replanted themselves just
as they did at the old gardens.
Oh, how she wished she were there.
She ate the sweet hot peppers one after the other
as if they might take her home if she ate enough of them.
The heat of the peppers in her stomach
eased the odd heaviness she felt.
She knew she really should start back to the river
before it got any hotter than it was,
but all the food in her stomach made her feel heavy and sleepy.
The heat was already strong, so she
decided to take a nap in the shade of a big boulder
and start back when the sun went down.
And it cooled off.
She slept longer than she intended.
The shadows were already long, and the sun about to set.
If she wasn't backed by dark, big Candy and the twins
might worry.
She walked only the distance back down the wash
past the melon plant when another cramp tightened
around her belly and back until she knelt in the sand, doubled
over from the pain.
She thought it was only diarrhea until she
saw the gouts of dark red blood glistening
on the sand between her feet.
How strange that the blood's color
was identical to the dark red edge of the sky at sundown.
All this blood, how much more blood
did she have before she died?
And the baby died too.
She crawled to clean sand and lay on her side
with her knees drawn up to her belly.
The blood felt warm and thick between her thighs.
And then it happened.
She could not stop her body from contracting
and push to relieve herself, then
realized something else had happened.
Some part of herself had been expelled.
She felt it pulsate, but it beat faster than her heartbeat.
And she knew it was the baby sand lizard born too soon.
Twilight was fading into darkness
as she gathered up the wet bundle still connected
to her own body.
She smelled blood as she cradled the dark sticky mess
in her arms before she bit through the cord that
connected them.
He was a tiny shrunken old man who
refused to stop sucking his own hand
long enough to open his eyes.
She tore her skirt and gently wrapped him not too tightly
around and around until she made a cocoon
with only a small opening above his face to keep him warm.
She was still bleeding, and the cramping did not stop.
And she thought my sand lizard grandfather
has come to take me home.
The sand remained warm after darkness came,
and she curled around the little black grandfather
who preferred his own fist to the nipples of her breasts.
She did not lose consciousness, but she
was so weak she felt the pull of the Earth
bring her to the ground.
And she thought, "so this is how we return to mother Earth."
She was happy to return because she
missed Grandma Fleet so much.
Toward morning, the desert cooled off,
and she woke shivering in the darkness.
The stars were bigger and brighter late at
night when they thought no one was watching them.
She looked overhead, the stars were closer and bigger now.
How they flashed in arcs traveling from place to place.
Though she shivered, still she took care not to move her arms
or shift the bundle in her arms.
She did not look down because she did not
want to know if he was alive or dead.
Was the bundle warm or cold?
It was so small she couldn't be sure.
Carefully, she pushed herself deeper
into layers of sand that were still warm.
O how soothing the warm sand was on her belly
and the base of her spine.
How sweet sleep was.
Let me sleep forever.
At dawn, she woke to a black dog gently licking her face.
If the dog's motion had not been so gentle and slow,
she might have feared an attack.
The bundle was secure in any case
because she slept curled around it to keep it warm.
During the night, she woke, but could not be sure if he moved
or if she had only dreamed he moved.
She was still bleeding, though much less
than the night before.
The afterbirth was in the sand nearby untouched by the dog.
A good sign.
The dog had a fat stomach, but seemed crippled.
It hobbled backward wagging its tail as she raised up.
Did something move in the bundle?
She still couldn't bring herself to look.
Too bad she hadn't brought a canteen
because she was really thirsty.
She wondered if Big Candy came to her tent last night
and was looking for her.
Maytha and Vedna probably wouldn't get back from Needles
until tomorrow.
The dog stood a short distance away
watching her face and the bundle in her arms curiously.
When they lived in Needles, she and Indigo
used to beg for a puppy, but Grandma Fleet
said dogs eat too much meat.
Now, the sun rose above the horizon,
but with a partial mask of thin clouds.
Her left arm was stiff from holding the bundle,
and she tried to shift it a bit without disturbing it.
If she bumped it and it didn't move,
then she'd know he was dead.
Just then, she was aware of a strange sensation,
an odd tingling, and when she touched herself
with her right hand, her breasts were swollen and leaked
warm milk through the cloth of her blouse.
The dog's ears pricked up at the bundle,
and when she first looked down, she thought she saw a spider,
but then she realized it was a tiny black hand reaching out
of the bundle.
He was still alive.
Now she had to look, but she dreaded
to see the poor little thing breathe his last.
Yes, she whispered to him.
It was her fault he was born too soon, for eating too
much greasy white colored food.
She whispered to him as she gently
pulled open the bundle to look.
Now both little black hands are waving at her angrily,
and she laughed with relief at how briskly
they punched the air.
He smelled breast milk, and wanted some right now.
As she fumbled with her blouse to bring out a breast,
he began a high pitched cry sounding like a river heron.
The longer it took for her to push back
the cloth wrapped around him, the louder the heron's cries
became.
His little wrinkled face was contorted in anger.
His eyes squeezed shut and mouth gulping like a fish.
In her haste to get the breast and nipple to his mouth,
milk squirted on his forehead, and for an instant,
he stopped wiggling and opened his eyes in surprise,
and she saw he was a tough customer who
wouldn't die anytime soon.
OK.
So that's--
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
OK.
Now, this is just sort of for people that work with writing,
and you struggle, and just so you know,
it never gets any easier, guys.
So this is something--
the publishers are publishing fewer and fewer books
of serious fiction or fiction of any kind-- silly fiction,
ridiculous fiction.
Fewer books of poetry, and everything is nonfiction,
and so I decided that I had to get with it
and come up with something--
one of those sort of self-help books--
play the stock market.
So this is just something I'm playing around with.
I don't know what it will turn into.
And so I bring it tonight not because it's
in any kind of very good shape, but mostly just
to share with you what I'm doing right now.
So needless to say, it's kind of a mess,
but that's what happens when you share
work that you're just starting with.
The working title is "Protect Yourself From Bad Spells
While You Get Rich."
And it looks like there's this narrator,
and the narrator is writing a book.
So the first thing you read is this table of contents
that the narrator has made.
And I guess this, Protect Yourself From Bad Spells
While You Get Rich, must be the title of the book
that this narrator is writing.
I think this narrator is a writer that--
is the writer.
We'll find out a little bit more.
Anyway, this is the table of contents,
and it's not complete.
So this is the first thing you see.
There's a table of contents, introduction, then chapter 1--
those who may wish you harm, and then in parentheses--
Unfortunately, close family members
lead the lists of likely suspects.
I wish it were not so, but the facts remain.
It is the family that is most likely to do a person in.
Others on the list include police, doctors, teachers,
and clergy who may be envious.
[LAUGHTER]
Chapter 2-- reasons to communicate with the dead.
Parentheses-- To find the locations of lost loot,
to learn lottery numbers, and race track winners,
or to learn the identities of enemies,
and finally, to make peace with the dead so they will help
keep the claws of the witches away.
Only the spirit world can protect you
from witchcraft, exclamation mark.
Chapter 3-- cases of witchcraft and then
there's kind of a big blank.
Chapter 4-- prevention.
Parentheses-- Keep your house filled with live snakes,
rodents, and other birds and animals
who repel the evil spells aimed at you.
Chapter 5-- cures--
bathing and blessed herbs, oils, and prayers after the cleaner
takes on all the filth she finds planted around your house.
Chapter 6-- gambling and gambling machines.
Parentheses-- how to waltz into a casino
and hit jackpot after jackpot without effort.
Chapter 7-- sex magic.
Parentheses-- To break a spell, a man and his mate
must go have sex in numerous public places
at night and in broad daylight.
[LAUGHTER]
There's 10 chapters but apparently, this writer
hasn't gotten any further or at least
I haven't gotten any further than seven.
OK, and then you the introduction to this book.
The water suddenly heaves and washes
against the sides of the bucket.
While brushing your hair, a voice
croaks from your left shoulder.
His black tuxedo jacket disappears from the closet.
You dream of a dead husband who wets your bed.
You dream a misunderstanding in which
you do not tell the person he may not have the book.
Someone wants power over you.
Someone always wants a slave or a toy.
Power comes from spells.
Spells come from all places and all times,
and you never know which ones will work.
Right here, let me say all power comes from God.
Whatever you call her or him or them,
let's not leave anyone out.
I'll explain why in chapters to come especially the chapter
on gambling machines.
This could happen-- electronic communication with the dead
by tape recorder and computer.
I will tell you all about it in the chapters to come.
Electronic devices are peculiarly
vulnerable to interference from the spirit realms.
The dead can tell you who is out to get you.
The earth shrinks and turns faster each year.
With time and space running out, vicious emotions
brew out of the scarcity of oxygen and water.
Envy and greed send them down on us and the others.
The old people say there are four previous worlds
below this world, which is on the brink of passing
to the realms below.
No destruction, only change.
Then there seems to be some sort of gap or space,
and then apparently, the writer says,
we are going to write this book together you
and I. It is the best direct sort of life learning
experience for the student.
Some of you want to learn about communication with the spirit
world, while others only want to learn
how to write a book about spirit communications.
We can easily cover both topics in the same book,
and then there's another space, and--
I was never very interested in the subject
of stargazing or crystal ball readings
or seeing the future in flames or pans of water
or goat's blood.
Still, I keep a quartz crystal ball
as a knickknack on my writing desk,
in the hopes the crystal might somehow attract or capture
radio transmissions from outer space.
Now this I is not me, but this character--
in the hopes the crystal might somehow
attract or capture radio transmissions from outer space.
Then, there's a parentheses, I think
they've made mistakes in the past, the sorts of earth
people they've tried to communicate with,
but there are political considerations
they must take into account.
Saving us until they really need our support.
They've tried to focus their efforts
on those who fear them, and want to destroy them.
They've put off contacting those of us who are their friends.
Instead, trying to learn what happens
if they contact humans who are ignorant or afraid of them.
They will eventually need to bring out
us humans who support them, and when they do,
I hope to be called.
Are the alien beings merely human spirits gone
into another realm or plane?
If not, then do the alien beings have souls or are
they constructs of mathematical operations
on the subatomic level?
Then there's some kind of space.
In the dust, I can't recognize any of the old places--
that's what one of them said.
That sounds like what a dead soul might say.
We're not used to the loss or change of the corporeal self
to the spirit self.
Later on, they get used to it.
Then in parentheses, how can there
be a later on when they are dead and in a timeless place?
Right.
The word later can't really be applied to the spirit realm.
The ghosts are everywhere they ever were for strictly,
they left little bits of themselves behind there.
Then there's some more space.
Do the dead contact the living?
Do they want us to make money off of them?
Then there's another space.
I am located in a small southwestern city
which shall remain nameless to protect
the people who helped me.
[LAUGHTER]
I will describe the dusty blue mountains that enclose
the valley in its own smoke.
Ancient volcanic deposits of pale ash
fill the sky with fine dust from the denuded plane
above the riverbank.
For some years, I made a decent living as a writer
until I was forced to find other means of support.
I thought since I was choosing a new life and new profession,
I should do something I knew very little about,
something which people truly needed enough to spend
their money to get.
I expected the answer might lay in fortune-telling or sex.
The summer heat was bearable only
by sealing the windows of the motel room with aluminum foil.
When I took the watchman's job, the real estate agent
said the demolition was scheduled
to begin at the end of August.
I could have any of the rooms I wanted she said.
The land was in the process of being sold to foreign buyers,
but there were problems with the financing, which
had delayed the deal.
The real estate agent stared off in the distance
when she said this, and I thought she was probably lying.
All over the city, there were motels and restaurants closed
up with plywood and 2 by 4s.
The lawns around the motel dried up first.
Now, the yellow frizzled grass seemed
to sink into the baked clay beneath.
The hedges of dead oleanders all around the room
seemed like fire hazards to me, and I made a mental note
to tell the real estate agent the next time I saw her.
I avoided the heat of the day by staying inside close
to the air conditioner.
The motel swimming pool was half full of green water.
At night, I sat outside and watched the toads come out
and perch on the floating trash and debris.
They watched me with yellow headlight eyes, the small males
on the backs of the big females.
Through the dull haze of city light
only the brightest stars shine.
I walk along the river until I reached the cemetery
where the darkness brings out more stars.
I try to avoid the cracks where the earth subsided
after the lawns dried up.
In a few places, the deepest cracks
reveal parts of concrete grave vaults.
I sit for a long time looking up at the big white star
watching me out of the southwest sky just above the horizon.
The light reaches my eyes and completes a circuit
across galaxies.
The star sees its own reflection in my eyes,
and recognizes it being here as it moves West westward.
I swivel my ass on the ground and keep facing it
until it sets.
I see a bright blue star and two bright red stars.
Could one be the red planet, Mars?
I know nothing about the stars, but feel they
will reveal themselves to me.
I will learn how to locate them in the sky.
I watched them for hours on end, and then began
to recognize a few.
All summer, I look back at the twin stars
that formed the monster's eyes on the southern horizon.
The bright blue star is below the snake's mouth
in the cluster I used to know as Orion's bow.
I leave all my former life behind me
in my efforts to become acquainted with the star.
Then one night in January when the weather is warm,
kids break into the boarded up motel office,
and set a small fire.
When I get back from my night with the stars,
the fire engines are just leaving.
I know the real estate agent will
want to know why I wasn't there to stop the kids.
Weeks go by, but eventually, she comes with a cancellation
notice from the insurance company in her hand.
She said she was disappointed because the others in her group
wanted to hire a man as a night watchman,
but she had argued for a woman.
I promised not to do my laundry late at night
when the punks leave their music clubs.
I know she doesn't want to advertise again for a watchman.
I ask her about a gun, then.
Punks are dangerous, especially for a woman alone.
And that's as far as it goes.
But she gets to have the gun.
Well I want to thank you so much for listening tonight.
[APPLAUSE] Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Please join us for carrot cake in the lobby,
and the author's books are on sale out there.