WEBVTT

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How are you guys feeling?

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You liking these upbeat
poems about death?

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This one is called "The
Person Who Was Expected."

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This is-- are you enjoying the?

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Yes.

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I wish I could watch it.

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We're about ready to do a
comedy routine from the '30s.

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She's talking
about me right now.

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I got to stop that, this
could go on forever.

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Who's on first?

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This is called "The
Person Who Was Expected."

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One of my very favorite
poets is James Tate

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and we were talking
about him in class,

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and I tried to write a book that
was a little bit like Memoir

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of the Hawk.

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And this was me trying to figure
out exactly what this guy is

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doing in Memoir of the Hawk.

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And so I tried to
write a poem that would

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fit if I placed it in there.

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I would try to do it so
that nobody would notice

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that it wasn't him who wrote it,
that was the goal of this poem.

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And I got to read this
to him a few months ago.

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The person who was expected.

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A man is sitting at a table.

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A woman says, can
I sit with you?

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The man says, sorry, but
I'm expecting someone.

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The woman sits down anyway
and says, I'm your wife.

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The man says no, no,
you're not my wife.

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But you do look familiar,
I think I'm your father.

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The woman says oh, no, you're
not my father, you're my son.

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Where have you been?

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They stare at one another until
the person who was expected

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shows up and hands
the man a magic baby.

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It grows in his hands, it's
hair spreads across the floor.

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This makes sense.

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The four of them
live in the future,

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where everything makes perfect
sense under a blue, crying beam

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of bird light.

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