WEBVTT

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Hi ya'll.

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It's just-- it's
really nice to be here

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for a lot of different reasons.

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I've loved Francine's
work for so many years,

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and I'm still kind of a little--

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just vibrating from
what she was reading.

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OK, so.

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"Aubade Ending with the
Death of a Mosquito."

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"At Apollo Hospital in
Dhaka in Bangladesh.

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Let me break free of these lace
frail lilac fingers disrobing

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the black sky from the
windows of this room.

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I sit helpless, waiting, silent.

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Sister, because you drew from
me the coil of red twine,

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loneliness spooled inside.

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Once I wanted to
say one true thing.

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As in I want more in
this life, or the sky

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is hurt, a blue vessel.

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We passed through each
other, like weary sweepers

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haunting through glass doors.

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Arcing across gray floors, faint
trails of dust we leave behind.

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He touches my hand, waits
for me to clutch back

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while mosquitoes rise like
smoke from this cold marble

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floor from altars, seeking
the blood still humming

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in our unsaved bodies.

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He sighs.

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I make a fist.

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I kill this one,
leaving raw kisses

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raised on our bare necks.

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Because I woke alone in
the myth of one life,

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I will myself into this other.

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How strange to witness,
nameless, the tangled shape,

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our blood makes across us.

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My open palm.

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Let me break the black
sky silent, sister.

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Spooled inside in this life
like weary faint trails

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to clutch back
from altars I make

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a fist, because I woke
to witness my open palm."

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