WEBVTT

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I'm going to read a few pieces
from Instrument of Gaps, which

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is the newest book
that came out.

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The poem that I'm going to
read next, if I can find it,

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is another poem--

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it's a poem about memory.

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And it's a poem about
where we keep memory

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and how we keep
memory, and how there

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are things that happen
in our lives that

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create a scar or a
wound on the inside.

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And this is one of them for me.

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I grew up living
with my grandparents,

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which is a whole other story
and book of poems itself.

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And, to this day, I'm deathly
afraid of mice because

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of this instance that happened.

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And so this poem is
called "We're Gentle."

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And you speak to the
mouse in the oven drawer.

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No coax.

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No out, out.

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Simple intonations,
as if before a him.

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You remember the weight
of the log in small palms.

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And he, riding the lawnmower
in circles, best be done now.

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And the bulbous shadow
moving and then not.

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The sweat of you in cower, how
we forgive ourselves least.

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How we hush, hush, and
hide in closed lids,

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yet we memory within,
think draperies of.

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The cranium within tendrils
and without our permission,

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something horrid and
floured and not provoked.

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How to pray to the
full, full sky.

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All these attempts lining
pews, shaking hands.

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And you, never on your
knees at the right time.

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And how visceral and innocent
you have always and never been,

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how gentle in your
weight, how gentle quiet,

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voice of the voiceless.

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And you now, palms to
stove, lips and lullaby.

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