WEBVTT

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Many of my poems are written
about friends, and neighbors,

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and students.

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I haven't written any yet
about faculty members,

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but I'm working on it.

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One thing I worry
about, though, is

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that the people will recognize
themselves in these poems

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and then be waiting for me
outside after the reading.

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And I hope it's realized that
these people, the real life

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people, are merely points
of departure for the poems.

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And so these poems have
many elements in them,

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which in fact, are not true.

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So that's the reason for my long
preamble to this one, called

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Steak Bones.

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My neighbor puts steak
bones under his trees.

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Walking in the alley,
there he is this bishop

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of the church in his
robe and slippers,

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holding a lamp like
the sage on Hills Bros.

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Coffee, stooping, turning
them over with a rake

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because they are growing hair.

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He spends evenings dozing
on the back porch chasing

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the dogs away that sail back
and forth over the fence.

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On weekends, lets his
grandchildren play with them,

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use them as boomerangs, as
parts for their airplanes.

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But when they go home, he
makes them put them back

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each to its own rounded
place, rotting eggs

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into their nests like loaded
pistols back into their cases.

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I have read that after years
if the mice don't get them,

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the ants carry them away.

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But they begin to disintegrate,
a constant phosphorous

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rain like uranium
penetrating the soil.

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Meanwhile, they lie there
in their wild beards,

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some with lipstick
smiles on their faces,

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others growing the thin
vestigial legs of lizards

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glowing in their
circles, humming

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their own private music.

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As above, the citrus leaves curl
turning a violent green putting

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out their globing fruit.

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And he lies awake on his
back beneath his Van Dyke,

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ripening overnight
in anticipation.

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It's a-- I don't know
the chemistry of it,

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but supposedly certain
fertilizers come out

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of these disintegrating bones.

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I've never tried it myself.

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I'd have all the dogs in the
neighborhood in the backyard.

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