If I was a real writer, I'd be able to think
of a name for the amazing plant that you are, Cybele.
I'll be working on that.
Thank you.
And thank you to the Poetry Center,
and to everyone, for being here.
I feel very lucky to be here.
So I am going to read those things, whatever they are.
And luckily, Cybele gave us a little bit
of a sense of what they may be or may not be.
So these are from Jewelry Box: A Collection of Histories.
"Duck."
He is a he-- has all the characteristics
of a man, male of the species, lord and warrior.
He is not a butterfly, though a butterfly can be male.
He is not a rock, though a rock is
strong and sometimes practical.
The water is chopped up like mica, but with fear attached--
the fear of anything that moves.
The oddest fear is that of stillness,
lack of change, the years passing by with no good use,
no fun, no liberation.
Easier and more classifiable in the fear department--
blue truck coming from the left, punctured bicycle tire,
punctured heart, stabbing wound from lurking outsider,
ritualistic maiming of beloved living creature, sabotage
of cherished object, flowering illness, arrival
of an unpleasant neighbor.
The girl thinks he must be male because she thought-- he--
when she saw him, and because she's used to imbuing things
with gender, as if she speaks French or Spanish--
which she does, but poorly.
The duck can be seen in quick cuts
on the other side of the rock.
He is swimming, paddling with his short legs
in the frigid waves.
It's the time of night when everything
is up for grabs and the thing you fear happens.
In the day, she believes that if she identifies it,
names the fear in her head, then surely it won't actually
become reality, occur--
for what a coincidence that would be.
The duck seems frightened by the rocks and by the sea.
The sky is darkening, and the clouds
lean over the duck and the girl like parents, teachers
who have discovered them behind the back fence doing something.
It is good and right to have teachers, parents,
even if they are didactic and strange.
It is good and right to feel in the fold of something powerful.
You can hear the repeating waves lapping faster and faster--
and without regard to sequence, or shape, or order--
against the pilings.
The girl kneels on the black boulder
and leans further out to the sea.