WEBVTT

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OK.

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Moving right along to the
"Death's Last Spring,"

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"Something More
Fragile Than This."

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And also, this is all the
reaction to my last reading.

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My last reading was Anchorage.

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And Anchorage, in my
hometown, I never do readings,

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and my book just came out.

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So I did a reading.

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And my kids came in.

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So of course, I couldn't
read any of this stuff,

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because you know?

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As is myself, a
parental advisory.

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So.

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[LAUGHING]

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Here it goes.

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"Something More
Fragile Than This."

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"Quit, before our bodies
turn themselves in.

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With a reverence
reserved for the dead,

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touch me, because I want to
remember how beautiful I am.

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While spring snows around
us, cracking her eggs

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on our windows, in her meager
dress of yellowing white,

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because I want to
rise into today.

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So why the urge to
render something

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more fragile than this?

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Why always the
soul blowing glass?

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The soul, once again,
filling the lungs with smoke,

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because a memory of regret
sweats in the plastic sleeve

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of a family album.

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Because there's a snapshot
caught between the pages

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of some thick book.

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My heavy 20-year-old frame
setting off the 60-pound weight

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of a dying mother.

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Because somewhere, there's a
negative slide of my heart.

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Because, and because,
and because, I'm sure

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there's a photo in some drawer
that shows me dressed in black.

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But I want to devote myself to
the mystery of this afternoon.

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I want to honor this
falling night, worst

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of the hour, vanishing
between 6:00 and 7:00.

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This moment where I'm
standing against myself,

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and against you, with
a taste in my mouth

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that's yolk, with Bob
Marley, taking that one long

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drag on the refrigerator door,
with the smell of spring."

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