WEBVTT

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If you're literary, you
write, you read a lot.

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So you've got a bunch
of stuff bouncing around

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inside your head.

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And I was involved with someone.

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We broke up some time ago.

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And shortly before
it broke up, an event

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similar to the one in
this poem took place.

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And I had just been
rereading Romeo and Juliet.

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So that figures a
little bit in here

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on the scene as summer
outside New York City,

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in the country outside New
York City visiting friends.

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She and I went out to visit
these two friends of ours.

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The title of the
poem is "Honey".

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"We four were fat with talk
under their fresh painted

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pergola.

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You giggle.

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He told us how he
chicken wired dirt chaos

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into that terraced garden.

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She announced road
stand watermelon.

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While the smart
scout did its work.

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Yellow jackets write
such precise expectations

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on the air.

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You dummied up when one
sensing sweet melon flesh

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alighted to sample
nectar on your lips.

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I watched it wanting
more, wanting in

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to probe your tongue.

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And you watched me as if I
were someone or somewhere else.

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The day before, for no
reason, death that hath

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sucked the honey of her
breath looped in my ear,

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and now came again while
we waited for the sting

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or cry that didn't come.

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Romeo's words played
back like nonsense rhymes

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when this morning's storm
drained yellow jackets

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to my ligustrum tree.

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Its spermy scent plied with
sweet broom and lemon blossoms

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like those in their garden when
the wooer petted your mouth.

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And you smile as if you
knew it couldn't hurt.

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Your eye on me,
making sure we knew

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you make your charms available,
but don't give them away."

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