Can everyone hear me?
Mm-hmm.
Excellent.
I want to start by thanking U of A and the Poetry Center
for inviting me, especially since I
have no book, which means none of you know anything about me.
But hopefully I'll make it worth your time.
I want to thank Allie, particularly, for inviting me.
Tyler, thank you.
You are a great host tonight.
And I also want to thank Polly and Sam
for sharing this reading with me and also for reading.
It's been a pleasure hearing you guys read.
You guys sure that's good?
I'm going to read I think four poems tonight, two of which
are from the upcoming book, and then two sort of newer poems.
So I'm just going to jump right into them.
The first poem is called "Under the Weather."
One.
A child once told me the sun is the deadliest animal, violent,
never blinking.
On Sundays, I sit on this mountain with a bottle of water
and a book, any book, not reading, jotting
balloons in the margins.
I don't go outside enough and I know it.
Imagine the landscape circling my window at night, mountains
angry and foaming with weather.
There are reasons I sleep until noon, ignore the hours patchy
and corn yellow on my eyelids.
Up North, they say the hills move slowly, like tongues.
I saw a video once of people gathering to burn letters
to loved ones who had passed.
They were sick with grief, but shuffled around the fire,
waiting for someone to speak.
I once heard you whisper, the decision
to give words to suffering is still a decision.
Two.
A man robbed a Walmart in Ohio.
When the cops were called, he ran and hid in a dumpster.
The not so funny part is that he is picked up by a truck
and compacted for an hour.
He called 911 from the truck, screaming
that he was being crushed, that he couldn't feel his legs.
It took the cops another hour to pinpoint the truck,
and they tried but couldn't pull him out.
They dumped him on the street and said all they could see
was an arm dangling from a mound of flattened boxes.
I only laughed because of how easily it could have been me.
Three.
Dear pomegranate, dear wild iris and seed,
I will do things differently.
The first time, again.
Before I peel the curtains back like flaps of skin,
what I am rolls over in the body, restless, the windows
chattering, the voice of a truck moving through everything
like a ghost.
I fear the news the way I fear the truth.
On the mountain, the sweat coats my face like pollen.
The higher I go, the more anxious I become.
My heart is swollen as a calf, bitten
by a spider, the body dragging itself in delirium,
going everywhere but home.