Thank you so much, Linda.
Thank you, Aleida.
Thank you, Sam.
Thank you all for being here this evening.
It's wonderful to be back in Tucson,
and it's wonderful to be reading to this audience,
and am I audible?
Yes.
Well, this is a very simple poem called "Invocation," which
I think follows from a dissent.
It's got a lot of names, a lot of proper names,
and some of them are proper names that some of us
will know.
"Invocation."
"This is for Elsa, also known as Liz,
an ample-bosomed gospel singer--
five discreet malignancies in one full breast.
This is for auburn Jacqueline, who
is celebrating 50 years alive, one
since she finished chemotherapy with fireworks
on the 15th of July.
This is for June, whose words are lean and mean as she is,
elucidating our protest.
This is for Lucille, who shines a wide beam for us
with her dark cadences.
This is for long-limbed Maxine, astride a horse
like conscience.
This is for Aline who taught her lover to caress the scar.
This is for Eve, who thought of AZT as hopeful poisons pumped
into her vein.
This is for Nanette in the Midwest.
This is for Alicia, shaking back dark hair,
dancing one-breasted with the Sabbath bride.
This is for Judy on a mountainside,
plunging her gloved hands in a glistening hive.
Hilda, Patricia, Gaylord, Emilienne, Tania, Eunice-- this
is for everyone who marks the distance
on a calendar from what's less likely each year to recur.
Our save-for-now lives are life sentences, which
we prefer to the alternative."