Well, does that work?
Good.
So I want to thank the Poetry Center
for inviting me to read and have the honor with reading
with Karen and Anne.
It's very lovely to be here and see all of your faces,
so thank you for coming.
So I don't talk a lot between poems.
I know some people do that, so I guess if you have questions,
you can ask me afterwards, maybe.
And my first poem is going to be the title
poem of the book, Noctilucent, which
means light produced in darkness, so I will say that.
"Noctilucent."
"In speaking of kyanos, cyano blue, a dark blue mineral
and designations of certain bluish salts and minerals,
of cyanide, cyanic, the blueness of skin, cyan,
the blueness of sky whose greenish blue is like water
breathed in, supplants air, my cyanosis,
condition in which the skin appears
blue from no oxygen in the blood.
Blue the blue of painted Greek boats, blue mercury light,
alive with the kindling of moths,
shy, shining in the night, little noctilucae not marred
in their bioluminescence, night glow if bugs,
making marine phosphorescence like love.
Latin moon-lantern, Japanese moon-lanterns
strung orange for the night-walk to a lover's door,
preceding electric blue lights of the city.
From space, nights are illuminated
by noctilucent clouds, waves, beaches, and celestial orbs,
migrations of aquatic plants whose cyan flight is mutable
change in light, dark the homes we
make glowing in other bodies, our lovers asleep inside us."