WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.310 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.310 --> 00:00:05.920 align:middle line:84%
This is a very new poem,
and it's still in progress,

00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:06.420 align:middle line:90%
I think.

00:00:06.420 --> 00:00:08.760 align:middle line:84%
I mean, I don't think of
this as a finished version.

00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:12.360 align:middle line:84%
But I'd like to read it
tonight, because reading

00:00:12.360 --> 00:00:14.460 align:middle line:90%
it will help me to work on it.

00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:17.680 align:middle line:90%


00:00:17.680 --> 00:00:22.960 align:middle line:84%
It's called "GL, Unseen
for Twenty Years."

00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:30.180 align:middle line:84%
And it's to a man I knew
20 years or more ago.

00:00:30.180 --> 00:00:31.335 align:middle line:90%
We were students together.

00:00:31.335 --> 00:00:35.570 align:middle line:90%


00:00:35.570 --> 00:00:40.040 align:middle line:84%
"Out of the blue, your
tight strong smile.

00:00:40.040 --> 00:00:43.280 align:middle line:84%
Often in the first snow
that even in Manhattan

00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:45.560 align:middle line:90%
smells like no other.

00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:49.250 align:middle line:84%
Even on my Broadway, crawling
with cripples and the self

00:00:49.250 --> 00:00:51.470 align:middle line:90%
despised.

00:00:51.470 --> 00:00:54.380 align:middle line:84%
Suddenly, we're shoulder to
shoulder in the left bank

00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:55.040 align:middle line:90%
streets--

00:00:55.040 --> 00:00:59.120 align:middle line:84%
Paris, the early '50s
of invincible ignorance.

00:00:59.120 --> 00:01:02.270 align:middle line:84%
We are face to face in
the Bozar Restaurant,

00:01:02.270 --> 00:01:06.050 align:middle line:84%
leaning our elbows on
bridges, and in the musty room

00:01:06.050 --> 00:01:09.890 align:middle line:84%
with one bare bulb I
lived in, six flights up,

00:01:09.890 --> 00:01:14.210 align:middle line:84%
with the view you drew
from memory in ink.

00:01:14.210 --> 00:01:17.900 align:middle line:84%
I clasp your hips on the
bike, sharing the empty plane

00:01:17.900 --> 00:01:18.920 align:middle line:90%
in March.

00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:22.580 align:middle line:84%
Teeth gritted in the wind,
searching for Chartes.

00:01:22.580 --> 00:01:27.650 align:middle line:84%
I doze across from you in the
boat train, we who are friends

00:01:27.650 --> 00:01:32.210 align:middle line:84%
and didn't understand,
thinking that men and women had

00:01:32.210 --> 00:01:34.970 align:middle line:90%
to be lovers.

00:01:34.970 --> 00:01:38.930 align:middle line:84%
Your face, taut as
a mask of wires,

00:01:38.930 --> 00:01:43.820 align:middle line:84%
half turned away, the one night
walking the city of love where

00:01:43.820 --> 00:01:47.690 align:middle line:84%
money talked, so cold
we warmed ourselves

00:01:47.690 --> 00:01:50.300 align:middle line:84%
with wine at every
all-night cafe,

00:01:50.300 --> 00:01:53.690 align:middle line:90%
to keep on walking, talking.

00:01:53.690 --> 00:01:57.230 align:middle line:90%
Your words drift back in pieces.

00:01:57.230 --> 00:02:00.470 align:middle line:84%
I can't make love to women,
you should know that.

00:02:00.470 --> 00:02:02.540 align:middle line:84%
But I'd like to hold
you, just to know what

00:02:02.540 --> 00:02:05.270 align:middle line:90%
it's like to sleep together.

00:02:05.270 --> 00:02:08.150 align:middle line:84%
The one night out of
all those weeks of talk,

00:02:08.150 --> 00:02:11.630 align:middle line:90%
you could talk of your fear.

00:02:11.630 --> 00:02:15.980 align:middle line:84%
I wonder what words of
mine drift back to you.

00:02:15.980 --> 00:02:19.010 align:middle line:84%
Something like, but
you're a man to me.

00:02:19.010 --> 00:02:21.950 align:middle line:84%
The swiftness of your
mind is masculine.

00:02:21.950 --> 00:02:25.610 align:middle line:84%
Some set piece I'd embroidered
from my woman's schooling,

00:02:25.610 --> 00:02:28.340 align:middle line:90%
like a motto in tapestry.

00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:30.050 align:middle line:90%
Of course you're a man.

00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:32.060 align:middle line:84%
I like you, what
else could you be?

00:02:32.060 --> 00:02:33.140 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:02:33.140 --> 00:02:34.100 align:middle line:90%
What else?

00:02:34.100 --> 00:02:35.090 align:middle line:90%
What else?

00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:38.390 align:middle line:90%
What bloody else?

00:02:38.390 --> 00:02:42.260 align:middle line:84%
Given the tragedy of
our planetary life,

00:02:42.260 --> 00:02:45.230 align:middle line:90%
maybe you hate these memories.

00:02:45.230 --> 00:02:49.280 align:middle line:84%
But we were talking,
in 1952, of the fear

00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:54.470 align:middle line:84%
of being crippled in that
world of perfect men and women.

00:02:54.470 --> 00:03:00.200 align:middle line:84%
We were the givens and the
stake, and we did badly.

00:03:00.200 --> 00:03:04.790 align:middle line:84%
And dear heart, I know if
your lovers gave the word,

00:03:04.790 --> 00:03:09.470 align:middle line:84%
you'd have left me for
a man, as I left you,

00:03:09.470 --> 00:03:11.270 align:middle line:90%
as we left each other--

00:03:11.270 --> 00:03:14.320 align:middle line:90%
seeking the love of men."

00:03:14.320 --> 00:03:17.000 align:middle line:90%