WEBVTT

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This is "An Empty Superstition."

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Either she wakes to rain as
it falls outside the window,

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or else she hears the traffic
and thinks today is clear.

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Today there will be no memory
and time will not emit,

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but perhaps there is neither
the sound of rain, nor rain,

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nor the absence of it.

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Perhaps the day is
neither green nor gray.

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As for instance,
one might say, fire

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burned by a fire when one
attempts to say his body

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burned.

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As if the rain were requisite
to emit a time of rain.

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As if a time of fire
were requisite to burn.

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She dreams each night
of a small, green house

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that burns and burns
despite a driving rain.

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In her dream the roof caves in.

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In her dream the roof caves in.

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Both the fire and
the rain are white.

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She thinks to burn in a wild
light must have some procedure.

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Then one might
plan for it if one

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could read the gestures
of a body as it burns.

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If one could know beforehand
what the burning gestures mean.

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But perhaps each body
burns according to itself.

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Its narrow face, its
skin, its glossy hair.

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How could a mouth on
fire ever speak itself?

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The mouth and the burning lip
and the fire are not the same.

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Perhaps one thinks I am
awake to mean I am on fire.

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My skin on fire.

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My shirt and hair on
fire and I cannot escape,

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but one cannot infer from the
nightmare of a body the dreams

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of a separate body
it slept beside.

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As if one could
be safe from flame

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by saying in this
kitchen drawer we

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will admit no match,
or in this house

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we only speak of what is damp.

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Or wrap three times
on the kitchen sink

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because one's knuckles
make the sound of rain.

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One thinks it is
the sound of rain

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and therefore, what my knuckles
mean will be self-evident.

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Therefore, it will
be evident to fire.

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Therefore, fire will not come
to live inside the house.

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The way one says the rain is
dry to make the day go clear.

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The way one says the rain is
wet, the rain is wet with rain.

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To mean the fire
must go out, to make

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the fire vanish from within.

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Thank you very much.

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