WEBVTT

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I had a fight with my
mother trying to wear

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this dress in my hometown.

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She said, you'll
look so different.

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I said, mother, I am.

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But the dress was
bought in Dublin,

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but I think it's
an Indian dress.

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So here I am wearing
it in Tucson.

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I guess that says a little
something about the world

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these days.

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I'll start out with the
poem from instructions

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to the double.

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But I'll be shifting back
and forth between poems there

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and poems which I
wrote in the Northwest

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where I've just come
from in Washington state.

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And I'll also be reading a
number of poems from my five

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months in Ireland, which I
came home in late November

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from that.

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This is a poem, the first
one is addressed to listeners

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and the quality of listening.

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"When you speak to me, take
care when you speak to me.

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I might listen.

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I might draw near as the
flame, breathing with the log,

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breathing with the tree.

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It has not forgotten.

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I might put my face next to your
face in your nameless trouble,

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in your trouble and name.

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It is a thing I learned
without learning.

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A hand is a stronger mouth.

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A kiss could crack the skull.

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These words, small steps in the
air, calling the secret hands.

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The mouths hidden in the flesh.

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This isn't robbery.

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This isn't your
blood or my tears,

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no confidence in
trade or barter.

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I may say nothing back,
which is to hear after you.

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The fever inside
the words we say.

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The words we say so
hard they fall apart."

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