So I'm going to read the rest of the time from Register of--
actually changed the title a couple of weeks ago.
It's now called "Register of Illuminated Villages."
Part of that is because I'm sort of prone to catastrophe.
I'm a clumsy person on top of being sort of like a very,
I guess like, cynical person in some ways.
But I realized recently that I'm actually
kind of an eternal optimist.
I think you have to be in some ways to be a poet.
So anyway it got me thinking about illumination--
it just kind of got me thinking about the things
that we are afraid of that are dark, that we don't necessarily
hold up to the light because we're ashamed of them.
So the book, I did this complete overhaul and the book
has these seven different movements
that all begin with a different hidden village.
So I'm going to read one of the movements.
And this begins with, "In the Hidden Village of the Past."
"There's a scar on your right shoulder
when a smothered kiss of laughter used to be.
There's this cutout of shadow where
the booted footsteps of your own poltergeists once trampled.
There was a time each jump on a trampoline took years,
and now your mouth pries open so someone
can poke at the enamel of your teeth abraded by smoke,
powdered donuts, or a fist that finally hit its mark.
You keep asking for more time and when
it rings you silence it.
You keep saying you'll make time when it's the only thing you
can't.
So instead you make skillets to make
all manner of vittles, a handheld brain
with a finger sensitive screen.
This woven blanket, the color of cream.
Used to sleep beneath it nightly to dream away loss.
You keep saying the past stops the world from killing itself,
but forget you're the one who threw yourself
in front of your own spears, and then thumbed prayer
beads with your grieving.
You're saying, don't you see I am a [? muktijoddha ?] of bones
wearing a high nippled, cocoa-thighed, hip-swinging
breastplate of fortitude, so sleek and so on fleek
you can't help but want to stroke it?
You're right.
You look good.
And it's everything, this moment,
waiting for them, standing against the battlefield
of yourself in front of this open window.
You turned to them with a convergence of your futures
still resting lightly on the pine cone handles of the willow
branch you snapped in half to sharpen into twin daggers.
You play war, so you can play love, so you can play war,
so you can play love, so you can play.
Don't be afraid to show them each secret passage
through those abandoned houses.
Don't forget it takes this long so fast.
You knew exactly when and who you
were the night you dared yourself to find a way out."