It's nice when the microphone is right at the right height.
Thank you for having me here.
It's great to be here.
It's my first time in Arizona, and I saw prairie dogs today
so, I am satisfied.
[LAUGHTER]
The first poem I'm going to read is
about a world in which beauty has been outlawed.
"The Gem" is on Page 64.
"Ahem, said the guards, when anyone lingered too long
with their nose in a posy.
And then came the stuttered, explanation was required,
if one seemed to be admiring.
Anything could provoke a ticket.
Even a certain glazing of the eye
that seemed to signify some secret rapture.
How the rupture between looking and looking had happened
was a mystery.
Perhaps there had once been a sallow queen.
But it was best to wear dark glasses,
and mutter, what a waste of marble, when
in the proximity of beauty.
Even when it was, necessary acts of loveliness
such as trimming the olive trees were
scheduled for non-moon nights.
So the silvery branches and piles around the ladders
wouldn't have any added.
Attraction between young men and women
was now a case of smuggled petticoats
and plain brown cakes that had icing on the inside.
And in the schoolyard, children traded beauty cards,
listing what page and book to look in for something.
Scandalous things had happened in a town up North.
It was rumored that all the pretty girls had pranced down
a cobbled hill holding gold picture
frames around their faces.
And a man with a cane began surreptitiously tracing where
the sun was hitting the stones.
And then the mayor whispered that line of Shakespeare
into his wife's ear.
And she looked momentarily.
Sentimental outbreaks were not uncommon,
and there were crews trained in containment.
But they could never predict the next one day they'd
come upon a soda fountain.
Each customer looking at his or her fizzy
drink with an expression of absolute bliss.
Or two boys in a basement, in ecstasy
over something imaginary, which couldn't be taken away
and poured down the sink."