WEBVTT

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And I want to close with
"The Invisible Body"

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with the last poem in the book.

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And it has the epigraph of
the definition from the Alaska

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dictionary.

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And I was translating a
memoir I have of ours,

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and I came across this term,
regla lesbia, which I had never

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seen in my entire life.

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I had never ever heard of.

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And so I thought, I
know regla, that's rule.

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What the hell is lesbia?

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That's not how you say
lesbian in Spanish.

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So I tried to look
up lesbia by itself.

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It doesn't exist.

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But, it doesn't-- it's nowhere
in any dictionary by itself.

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So I have no idea
what the hell that is.

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But it's interesting to
know that this definition,

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"flexible rule that
may be adjusted

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to anybody to be measured.

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Compare regla fija, standard."

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Now regla fija makes
perfect sense to me.

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Regla, rule.

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Fija, fixed.

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So as a standard, right?

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Where does that lesbian
thing comes from?

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It's like, that's
what I want to know.

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If anybody knows that
please talk me afterward.

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But the reason it captured me,
and I was like working on that.

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I couldn't take any
time out for my writing,

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but I have these little
notes that I keep on doing.

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So I wrote the
definition out knowing

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that I would use it
because it didn't

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say flexible rule that may
be adjusted to any object

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to be measured.

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It said flexible rule that
may be it adjusted to any body

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to be measured.

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And I thought that is so
intriguing because right

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before this I had
this weird thing.

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I knew that I was about to write
a poem because I kept hearing

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in my mind was the invisible
body, the invisible body,

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the invisible body.

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I didn't have no idea what
the hell it was about.

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And I had no poem
cooking, I thought.

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And then when I came
across this I thought,

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I wonder if this has to do
with the invisible body?

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So I just like copied
it down and hoped

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that the poem would come.

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And in fact, the
first and only poem

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I've written on a computer.

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And have long lines as a result.

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It has seven parts, and
I won't read the numbers.

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Oh, there's a little
bit of a reference here.

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There's a 75-year-old
poet that I mentioned,

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and that is Marie Ponsot to
whom I posed this very question.

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I went to her as an oracle.

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So that's who it is.

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I'd like to fill that little
piece of the puzzle in.

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"The Invisible Body."

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"In the garden, it's there.

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Even when you're
inside, you feel it

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as though it were you standing
naked among the weeds.

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The tips of the bougainvillea
bursting into flame.

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Your nipples ruffled like the
skin of a lake by a breeze.

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You worship the invisible body
like an old fashioned lover

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from afar, loving
the specificity

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of space between you.

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Sometimes at night
it stretches out

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on the empty side of the bed.

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Stares at you the length
of its invisible circles.

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Every contour of your
body not filled by you

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is molded by the attentiveness
of the invisible body whose

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breath surrounds you.

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It's more than prayer it wants.

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More than language
with its conditions.

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The invisible body
demands you invent

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new senses to receive it.

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New places on your body
to marvel at its subtlety,

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like the eyes of the
deaf percussionist that

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perceives sound.

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The invisible body wants you
to become a satellite dish,

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tuned to what exists only
because your body comes to it.

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Like the woman who had
her kitchen remodeled

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to make room for the microwave
she'd entered a contest for.

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Then won.

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When asked whether
falling in love

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was about inquisitiveness,
about the ego,

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the 75-year-old poet
responded that the ego

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had nothing to do with it.

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It was the need for
union with the beloved.

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Rumi asks, who is it we spend
our entire lives loving?

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How then do you measure
the invisible body,

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which was this commitment,
but is faithful?

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Is it clear who
the beloved is when

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no clear body exists that can
be measured against a standard?

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The invisible body
sometimes acquires a body.

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It's so convincing.

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It takes you a while
to figure out it's

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really the invisible body.

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Like someone who has been
reading your journal,

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it has decoded from your
petty, daily complaints

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the open sesame that slides
the stone from the hidden caves

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opening and cleans you
out while you sleep,

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leaving a sarcastic note.

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It wants you to know it
was doing you a favor.

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Besides, how else did
you think you discovered

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the cave's precise location?

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When Aphrodite sharpens you, you
sacrifice a little of yourself,

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willingly, as the knife does
so that you may become better

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at it.

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This is the point at
which the invisible body

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speaks in italics, the
Ouija board of poetry.

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In my mind, says the invisible
body, that time capsule

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shuffling through space, I
hold in all the languages

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of the world, your love, rush
like holographic platters

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to a table.

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Steaming into the future long
after you cease to shine.

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The silver faces of
your beloved bobbing

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out of the darkness, the black
velvet pillow of your life

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on which you offer them review.

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The invisible body is
created out of your longing.

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Your longing, compressing
invisible molecules together

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into an absence you recognize.

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That is the way one
blind man sees the world

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after the fact in
photographs he took

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once he had passed through it.

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Thank you very, very much.

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