I like to read another poem, that
is a poem that I tried to write talking about the problem
that women have.
It's not really a problem that women have,
it's a problem that all of us have in this culture.
If I ever talk from the platform more about the problems
that women have than the ones that men have,
it's not that I believe that women have all the problems.
I think if I had my choice, which obviously, I
don't in this culture I choose to be a woman because I think
it really is less burdened with terrible choices
and difficult and impossible expectations.
And I hope somewhere in the world
there's somebody writing about the terrible cultural pressures
that this society is put on on men,
but anyway, I have to speak for myself and my own problems.
And one of the problems that almost all women experience
is that when they show strength in a situation
where a husband or a lover or another man is simply involved.
They frequently wind up being criticized
for that strength being called ball breakers
or castrated or bitches, or something very terrible.
Because it's a horrible cultural situation that when you have
a man and a woman together, the man is supposed to be strong
and it doesn't matter what the woman is as long as she
doesn't--
you surf that role.
And obviously, it seems to me that it's so hard for any of us
to respond with strength and courage to any situation
that any human being who does it ought
to be honored for that there's something very
terrible about this situation.
A few years ago, I witnessed a domestic scene
that haunted me and for about a year until I could write
a poem about it of a family that had a mentally retarded child.
And a very unbalanced atmosphere as a result
of the enormous strain of caring for this child.
And it happened the father--
husband is one of the most witty and charming men
I've ever met in my life.
And his wife was one of the dullest people
I've ever met in my life.
But she had a kind of strength that he didn't have,
and he had a kind of weakness that
needed her strength enormously, but she was constantly
being put in these embarrassing situations where
she had to do something very strong, and seemingly
authoritarian and terrible.
And he would sort of withdraw, let everyone criticize her
and make it into an ugly and terrible situation.
And I wanted to write a poem for her
to honor the strength that she showed
and to talk about that kind of strength.
I wrote a poem called "Slicing Oranges for Jeremiah"
because the scene that had fascinated
me was watching this woman so efficiently slice up oranges
for this child who wanted to eat them.
"Slicing Oranges for Jeremiah."
"As the juice ran out on the wooden board, the third orange
you would cut for this son of yours opened,
and he grabbed the slices like a little raccoon running
to prepare them.
Carrying his bowl to the table where
he ate, his instinct trying to make up for something not
in his throat or his fingers, trying to make up
for the thyroid gland he was born without,
he would eat a dozen oranges if you would let him--
Rosey Jeremiah with long eyelashes.
What does it mean if a child cannot talk when he's six,
if he shits in the toilet one day, in his pants the next?
What does it mean if a man drinks
and can't earn enough money?
And what if he tells his wife he'd like another woman,
but wouldn't have one?
And what does it mean if he tells his wife
she's unpleasant or dull?
And what does it mean if his wife takes sleeping pills
or walks in front of a car?
And what does it mean if Jeremiah takes the sun
and slices it up like the oranges,
and eats a little fire thirsty for the juice?
When you take the knife in your hand
to slice an orange burst into quarters, then into eighth.
Each slice shining is orange jelly a goldfish lights
on the water at night.
And you cut competently, efficiently,
a housewife who knows how to divide.
When you take your instrument and use
it making pools of orange juice letting
the peels spray into your nostril, what does it mean?
And your son eating orange after orange
until I felt the juice in my own mouth just watching.
And the sweetness and I wondered what was missing or why.
And where his thyroid went or why there was no gland there,
and how even this baby animal--
your son must know that it was you
who kept him alive, remembering his pill each day.
And taking him places where people would respect him
and letting him make drawings and build garbage structures.
And how his father knew too it was you who kept him alive.
Your husband giving him whatever artificial gland
it was you did each day, and how they both resented it
depending on it as they did.
The men needing the woman more than any man could admit.
And what does it mean this strength you have?
It keeps you hovering towards death,
it keeps you near the pill bottles
and close to the wheels of cars.
It keeps you sad and compassionate
willing to understand the miseries of others.
It isn't weakness that points us towards death, but strength.
Men dying earlier than women to show their strength.
Women taking their own lives with gas and ovens
with their gold clock babies under their aprons,
with sleeping pills glistening like amber necklaces
poured into the stomach's cave.
Stepping quietly under car wheels
as they lie with their men at night, not murmuring, enduring
until the breath is pushed out.
Slicing oranges for your son.
You cannot see what I see.
The oranges growing outside my own back door when I was five.
The dusty dark citrus leaves making black smudges
against my sweater.
There is a gypsy in me who wants to run
with all these oranges in a bag and trade them for the sun
or find someone who will cut them for me,
the way you slice them for Jeremiah.
That care, that efficiency.
Instead of some gland I might have an orange tree growing
just behind my throat straining to stay alive to endure,
waiting for the efficient hand to reach inside
and slice the oranges as you do as I saw
you slice oranges for Jeremiah.
Slice the oranges for your son, who
could eat a dozen you said if you'd let him.
[APPLAUSE]
I like to read--