I'm going to start with a love poem, "A Promise."
My bare feet on a blanket of thorns
I taste the tree sap dew on the grass.
How generous is that?
I used to pretend I didn't exist and now your tongue
on my clit like an incantation.
In the before I worshipped the blood of my own suffering,
the sound of rivers.
I mutilated skies with my fingers.
Then I found a faith like windows.
A piano in a sand dune, wild crustaceans.
When you kiss the nape of my neck, I see your children--
future tense-- in the distance.
I see the ashes of a wedding dress.
It was a life wounded by bells the before.
I sinned against hope.
Why have I always loved hoofed creatures?
I belong to you.
I belong to this.
I belong to no one.
I wanted so much to be seen to watch galaxies grown to dust
and rebuilt again.
These are my oblations, fistfuls of dirt, your body stirring
like a divine ram.
I trace my lips with it.
He was trash though.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]