The next one is about a similar character.
[LAUGHTER]
Also from my neighborhood, matter of fact,
from right up in the next floor up.
There's a girl named Beverly, and I'm
sure everybody has a Beverly in his past.
The only thing that I should say about the poem
is that there's a mention of something called
a House of Good Shepherd.
I don't know if they have that all over the country,
but back in Massachusetts, the House of Good Shepherd
is a reform school for girls.
I think run by nuns.
I'm not sure.
But she got sent up there at one point in her career.
"In Praise of Beverly."
"When you walk down the stairs to touch my root,
God knows what brought you.
Barely 14, already known as the town pump,
and proud of your clear attributes.
I imagine you in that narrow bed,
close to your parents, drunk, lungless breathing,
plotting love.
I touched your breasts for something, I don't know what?
For luck?
I don't think we ever kissed, but once we lay in a ditch
in summer, roasting apples, careless for hours.
When the fire grabbed the weeds, you held my root, and grinned,
and said, 'let's wait to hear the fire engines come.'
You got sent up early, to the House of Good Shepherd,
because the mothers were jealous of your favors.
When the friendly leering cop said,
'I hear you've been dipping the wick in Beverly,' I blushed
and stammered, proud, then lied to save my skin.
The night they took you away, I dreamed your face,
your hands that pulled away the dark were mine.
And grown to share your misery, I found my own in my good time.
Now the cops are lurking on Hillside,
for the lost pain of Beverly.
You can't imagine the emptiness, the sabbath of fantasy."
[APPLAUSE]