I'm going to read just a few poems from the-- manuscript?--
or, the book.
[LAUGHTER]
It gets you know--
the second book.
So the second book is called Play Dead.
I think this is actually the first time
I've read from this book now that it's actually in the form
that it's going to be in.
So this is one of the early poems.
It's called "In Case."
It's in three parts.
"In Case."
"One.
I carried a clit in case.
In case it wasn't rape.
In case the kiss was your lovely.
In case you suck a sore tooth.
In case you were steady.
Your hand was steady.
In case you could talk.
I carried a clit and a wrist in case I could rub it,
and you could bleed it, and we could talk it down off a ledge.
In case you could hear me.
In case I could walk.
Following all things pedestrian, like beds and pricks.
In case the gates would open.
In case the drink was sweet.
In case the flagpoles empty.
In case I could hear sheets flap like a punch in the thigh.
Two.
One punches thigh open, another writes scripts.
Pens, white gown.
And white banner and white sheet.
And white cover and dove.
And white birch and parchment.
And white cinder and slab brick.
White ash of punched cunt.
White follicles ripped.
And we were not winter.
All dark and thick, and full of mouth.
Three.
We were not wonder, all dark and thick.
Our mouths got us kicked.
You ask a principal, a counselor, the man in the room,
our mouths got us running.
Soup water from sewers, and gentler weather keeps chicks.
Our mouths got us full to black rim, to red blather
toward trouble.
A generous flight of stairs.
Our mouths got us hissed ridiculous.
You ask a shaman, his snake of women, his clavicle stick,
our mouths got us bitter ass whipped.
Pick our owners, our switches, our licks, or shut up.
Or shut up, or shut up."