The first poem is called "My Hair Is My Thing".
The symphony is out of money again,
and no wonder, all those violins, the twisted strands
and sponges.
Who could not think of torture?
Last week I read a novel about a man so awful
that when he died I wept because it was fiction.
I wanted it to be real, to watch him really die.
And I wanted you to die also and to be
feted with a lengthy organza filled funeral
so that I could make a big show of blowing it off.
I decided to go on and get a tattoo of your funeral with me
not there, but apparently it's illegal
here to tattoo a person who is crying.
The trend now is to be interred with beloved possessions,
pearl trimmed gun, gold watch, whatever you got.
Some people recoil at the waste of it, but not me.
These contused little objects of wealth, they're disgusting.
I just pray we have Earth and shovels enough.
I pray we have bodies enough to bury them all.
I'm going to read a little bit from my book Hard Child which
I had a really great discussion about with students today,
and the book begins with some poems that are about pregnancy.
The first poem takes place at a prenatal medical exam,
and it has some trivia in it.
There's some trivia questions and answers
throughout the book, so you also will
become educated on some things that you won't need to know.