WEBVTT

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This one is the last poem
I wrote for the collection.

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I got the phone call
from Mr. Phillips.

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I cannot call him Carl.

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I got the phone call from
Mr. Phillips, and I--

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at a colony.

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And when I went home, I went
through all the notebooks,

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and put out every
last image and phrase

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I could still respond to,
and made a self-portrait.

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"Self-portrait with
Tumbling and Lasso."

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"I'm drumroll and voyeur.

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I am watermark and fable.

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I am weaving the
snarls of a wolf

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through my hair like ribbon.

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At my feet chisels and jigsaws.

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I am performing an
autopsy on my shadow.

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My rib cage a wall, my heart
a crack in a wall, a foothold.

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I am tumbling upward--

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a French acrobat.

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I am judder and effigy.

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I am Pompadour and splendid.

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I am spinning on a
spit, split in half.

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An Apple.

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In my mouth.

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I know what Eve didn't know--

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a serpent is a fruit
eaten to the core.

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I'm a massacre of the dreamers,
a terracotta soldier waiting

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for his emperor's return.

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When I bow, a black fish leaps
from the small of my back.

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I catch it.

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I tear it apart.

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I fix the scales to my lips.

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Every word I utter
is opalescent.

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I am skinned and orphic.

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I am scarlet and threshold.

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At my touch, a piano melts
like a slab of black ice.

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I am steam, rising, dissipating.

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I'm a ghost undressing.

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I'm a cowboy riding bareback.

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My soul is whirling above
my head like a lasso.

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My right hand a pistol.

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My left automatic.

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I am knocking on every door.

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I'm coming on strong,
like a missionary,

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and kicking back my
legs, like a mule.

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I'm kicking up my
legs, like a showgirl."

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My niece loves to tell me, you
are nothing like a showgirl.

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[LAUGHTER] I'm like, I
know, I know, I know.

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Poems can tell lies.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And she really gets mad when
I say that to audiences.

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Like, stop talking about me.

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And I say, listen, if I'm
buying your One Direction stuff,

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right now, I can use a little
snippet here and there.

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It's a trade off.

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