Let's see.
I'll read one more poem--
well, I'll read two more poems if you don't mind.
And then I'll tell you stories.
"Inventor."
The poetry world is--
I don't know.
It was not interested in the tone and the confessional.
And so something else is happening
at the end of this book--
something else was happening to me.
I don't know if I picked it up or not.
But anyway, I like this poem.
"Strikes Out."
"The jay streaks through the lilacs in color clash.
I note down, quote, 'invent outdoor bird swing'
so birds, drunk on berries, fall off
in plaid in front of my window.
I file it.
After all, the pussy willows barely tufted.
I have time.
At the drain, lifting its feet, a Modigliani bird.
Another invention?
The brook agrees so brookishly, gulping
at run off like a bear in spring, like my husband.
He didn't trust my patents, the gutter chain,
the collapsing arthritic's cane, a lever for pulling
old stumps in heavy rain.
But every act harbors a corresponding gadget.
It is that way with God, adjusting the acorn,
locking the tree.
With the womb, he was clearly Italianate.
The bulbous lines.
The excess.
I often think of him.
Humming Beatles songs like me, over six Mason jars of improved
pickling, my offspring.
The dog laughs.
You heard it, a choke then black gums.
A frothing irony.
He's all wet from rescuing bones from the brook.
He drops them in and then goes after.
The brook's rising with bones and I'm
afraid the electricity will fail.
Will the dog save me with his laughing?
That's what this invention's for, the automatic rosebush
waterer, hooked to the sun and this wheel in perpetuity.
Once a pirate working on my outboard
told me, Betty, better sand trickling the hourglass
than a shifting dune.
Even the Sudanese plant borders of aloe against the drifts.
Besides, I like the look of roses.
Oh, that's the husband at the door, scratching.
Nights his furry self stands naked before me
until the dog removes his stuffing.
Oh, bear.
Only by opening the blinds do I see his bleeding.
But it's me, not him, aching with overdue maternity.
The inventor.
A simple drawer full of cobwebs kept for emergency
does for him, self sticking.
Then together, we apprise the chimney,
holding hands and chatting about the soot stains.
That was in the winter before he died, the deft air stealing
all we were speaking.
Yesterday, a patent came from my speech retrieval unit,
an unusual event even for me, because the government usually
can't get past the drawings.
And these were intricate.
I had the duck by the neck, her feet in food coloring,
each step inked in.
It all made sense.
Listen to the ducks now.
And just in time for the aspect.
Ghosts are aspects, aren't they?
Of all but speech, I have a memory.
That one sense shy of mimicry.
In the spring, now, in fact, I take the black fly larva
off rocks in the Rapids.
On toast, pre-maggot, the very eggs of mortality.
Eating them, I figure I can lure death itself.
A raccoon washing and washing in the dark.
And from there, patent the trap.
I'll be rich if it works.
Works, go the frogs.
Works, works."
[APPLAUSE]
Ooh, thank you.