I'm going to read a few pieces from Instrument of Gaps, which
is the newest book that came out.
The poem that I'm going to read next, if I can find it,
is another poem--
it's a poem about memory.
And it's a poem about where we keep memory
and how we keep memory, and how there
are things that happen in our lives that
create a scar or a wound on the inside.
And this is one of them for me.
I grew up living with my grandparents,
which is a whole other story and book of poems itself.
And, to this day, I'm deathly afraid of mice because
of this instance that happened.
And so this poem is called "We're Gentle."
And you speak to the mouse in the oven drawer.
No coax.
No out, out.
Simple intonations, as if before a him.
You remember the weight of the log in small palms.
And he, riding the lawnmower in circles, best be done now.
And the bulbous shadow moving and then not.
The sweat of you in cower, how we forgive ourselves least.
How we hush, hush, and hide in closed lids,
yet we memory within, think draperies of.
The cranium within tendrils and without our permission,
something horrid and floured and not provoked.
How to pray to the full, full sky.
All these attempts lining pews, shaking hands.
And you, never on your knees at the right time.
And how visceral and innocent you have always and never been,
how gentle in your weight, how gentle quiet,
voice of the voiceless.
And you now, palms to stove, lips and lullaby.