So I'll conclude by reciting some love poems.
I never think of myself as a love poet
because, when I was writing as a young man,
all my love poems turned out to be absolute slush
so I threw them all away.
And by the time I started to write them,
I was long married so most of these are about marriage.
[FROM AUDIENCE] Oh, boy.
[CHUCKLE]
This one is called "Love Song, I and Thou."
Nothing is plumb, level, or square.
The studs are bowed.
The joists are shaky by nature.
No piece fits any other piece without a gap or a pinch,
and bent nails dance all over the surfacing like maggots.
By Christ, I am no carpenter.
I built the roof for myself, the walls for myself,
the floors for myself, and got hung up in it myself.
I danced with a purple thumb at this house-warming,
drunk with my prime whiskey, rage.
Oh, I spat rage's nails into the frame-up of my work.
It held.
It settled plumb, level, solid, square,
and true for that great moment.
Then it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it.
This is hell.
But I planned it.
I sawed it.
I nailed it.
And I will live in it until it kills me.
[LAUGHTER]
I can nail my left palm through the left-hand crosspiece,
but I can't do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right, a help, a love, a you, a wife.
[AUDIENCE MURMURING]