Some of you that I met with today
showed me poems that had grown out of an exercise.
And this is a poem that grew out of a sort
of self-imposed exercise of trying to see how many times I
could use the word "because" in a poem
without becoming totally monotonous.
And for those of you who have forgotten,
Stanley Kowalski is the hero, so to speak,
in A Streetcar Named Desire.
"Because."
"Because the night you asked me, the small scar of the quarter
moon had healed--
the moon was whole again.
Because life seemed so short.
Because life stretched before me like
the darkened halls of nightmare.
Because I knew exactly what I wanted.
Because I knew exactly nothing.
Because I shed my childhood with my clothes--
they both had years of wear left in them.
Because your eyes were darker than my father's.
Because my father said I could do better.
Because I wanted badly to say no.
Because Stanley Kowalski shouted Stella.
Because you were a door I could slam shut.
Because endings are written before beginnings.
Because I knew that after 20 years,
you'd bring the plants inside for winter and make a jungle
we'd sleep in naked.
Because I had free will.
Because everything is ordained.
I said yes."