So I'll read-- first of all, thank you to the Poetry Center
for having us.
I'm just excited to make an evening of art with a friend.
We have dinner, we swim in each other's pools,
we drink each other's wine, but we
don't get to be artists together very often.
So thank you for that.
This poem is-- or this book is written as one long address
to my daughter.
Her language appears almost nowhere in the book,
except for in this first poem that's
made almost entirely of her language.
You'll see she's the better poet.
And in this one poem, she anticipates the entire book.
The poem is called "Your Instructions."
"You oare somebody else who didn't
know me, ever, pretend that.
But I was going to be here next to you,
and the horse walked between us really slow.
But really.
And then a fire came and didn't hurt anybody, but only
the horse forgot about it.
Then I'll tell you what the words said.
The shadow was a plane.
Pretend that.
When you take your face out of the water.
But then you have to take the water out of the bowl with you.
Like that dream, I only ever had two dreams.
But then I was at Pump It Up with all my friends."
And the parents laugh because the parents know Pump It Up
is one of these places that smells like feet.
Where you have birthday parties and the kids--
it's one big bouncy house place.