WEBVTT

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"The Perfect Lipstick."

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This is my 4th of July poem.

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For real, it was published
for the first time

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on the 4th of July.

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"The Perfect Lipstick,"
which I try to always have.

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OK.

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And they don't make
the kind I really like.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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"When the life size replicas
of the Niña, the Pinta,

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and the Santa Maria precariously
sailed into New York Harbor,

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they looked like toy ships.

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Just think, Columbus
in a toy ship,

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off to discover the
perfect route, the fastest

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way to China, the
Indies, all that spice.

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You never got this far north.

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But all the same, the slaughter
of whole peoples, buildings

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that even God had not
thought of in 1492,

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and expulsion, discovery,
the slave trade all followed.

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Out of this horror came new
foods, new clothes, new shoes,

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a language as mixed as
the blood of the people

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and as alienating.

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But there are times when the
connections, no matter how

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fragile, hold like the thick
sails of those tall ships,

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which decorated the harbor July
4th in fog and gentle light.

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It is why I appreciate my
favorite shade of lipstick,

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Sherry Velour.

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Sounds like the name of a drag
queen from the early seventies.

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One of those--"

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I-- hey, I lived on
the Upper West Side

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and there were some
serious drag queens.

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They were great.

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They are tall, too.

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OK.

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"One of those strapping
black men who'd

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had enough of playing macho,
put their feet in 5 inch heels

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and made saints of Dinah
Washington, Rita Hayworth,

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and a very young Nina Simone.

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So, on goes this lipstick,
pretty for parties,

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fatal for festivals, Sherry
Velour and her hot discoveries,

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light above the fog, a toy ship,
black men in sequined dresses,

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and the click of new
words in the new world,

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were the most dangerous
of dreams come true."

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