WEBVTT

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The last poem that I'm going
to read from this collection

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is a poem from the final
section of the book, so

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the new final section.

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So the first final
section was "The Study

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for the End of the
World," and then I

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gave birth to my
daughter, and I realized

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that it doesn't end there,
and that maybe nothing ends.

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And so I wrote a series
of beginning poems

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in the first few weeks of
her life, sort of furiously.

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And a few of those poems
made it into the collection.

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So this is called, "To Be Born
is the Supreme Loneliness."

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They were hopeful, beautiful,
uplifting poems to me

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at the time, even though
that doesn't sound like it.

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"To be born is the
supreme loneliness.

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It is to wake alone for the
first time, a simple form,

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startled at its edges.

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To be born is to be
the first creature.

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It is to be the beginning
of knowledge, and therefore,

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of desire.

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To be born, to enter, is to
already have required an exit.

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It is to be the
knot, so to speak,

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at the end of one's own rope,
the hand placed to the mouth

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in lieu of the sustaining thing.

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It is to be the simple
repetition of object

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and breath, the first
languageless mouthing

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at the proffered fist.

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It is a supremely lonely thing.

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It is not to be
companionless, to be

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without destiny or origin.

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It is instead to exist
like or as the world

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into which one is
continuously born,

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as the soft hum of
the bulb overhead,

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as the tread of rubber
soles back and forth

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across the hospital floor.

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It is to exist infinitely
and all at once,

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without limit or end,
and all the same,

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as if alone, as
if a single thing.

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To be born is to encounter,
no, to become, this juncture,

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to become the fold as
a paper or cloth where

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one side, in becoming
the next, conceives

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of itself as a folded thing.

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To be born is to long
suddenly to be born again,

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for the next breath to be the
last, the final and sustaining

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thing, for the world to
occur again, and all at once,

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for light and sound
to exist as they once

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did with no difference
between them,

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for footsteps to travel,
no longer back and forth,

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but again, and at once,
in all directions.

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To be born is to discover
and become one's own limit,

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the body a shorthand, a
simple gesture with which one

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is required to
describe, imperfectly,

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that only for so long as it
holds, the absent center."

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