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The first poem is called
"My Hair Is My Thing".

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The symphony is
out of money again,

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and no wonder, all those
violins, the twisted strands

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and sponges.

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Who could not think of torture?

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Last week I read a novel
about a man so awful

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that when he died I wept
because it was fiction.

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I wanted it to be real,
to watch him really die.

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And I wanted you to
die also and to be

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feted with a lengthy
organza filled funeral

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so that I could make a big
show of blowing it off.

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I decided to go on and get a
tattoo of your funeral with me

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not there, but
apparently it's illegal

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here to tattoo a
person who is crying.

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The trend now is to be interred
with beloved possessions,

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pearl trimmed gun, gold
watch, whatever you got.

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Some people recoil at the
waste of it, but not me.

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These contused little objects
of wealth, they're disgusting.

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I just pray we have
Earth and shovels enough.

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I pray we have bodies
enough to bury them all.

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I'm going to read a little bit
from my book Hard Child which

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I had a really great discussion
about with students today,

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and the book begins with some
poems that are about pregnancy.

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The first poem takes place
at a prenatal medical exam,

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and it has some trivia in it.

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There's some trivia
questions and answers

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throughout the book,
so you also will

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become educated on some things
that you won't need to know.

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