My last poem.
It's all I brought, so there's no encore.
[LAUGHTER]
"I passed a dozen men lined up at the door of the plasma
center.
It was 5:00 in the morning.
One wore a logo of a sunrise on his T-shirt.
The moon was still up and so were Saturn and Venus
glowing like stars.
I read the ocean is absorbing carbon dioxide slowly
but more of it, and this new acidity is dissolving shells.
The food bank can't afford holiday boxes this year,
but Walmart customers barreled down the door on Black Friday
and trampled a worker to death in the name of a bargain.
We are evolving, my friends, into a species that does not
care about us whatsoever.
I dropped beloveds and stole my friends from John McCain.
I stole Atlas Shrugged from Barnes and Noble
and then never read it.
Though I can say the Lord's Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance
by heart.
I went with my heart instead of from memory.
Remember when you said, sometimes you're like a stone.
I want to be more like a stone.
People take pictures of car accidents with their cell
phones as they drive past.
They text them to other people who
drive by different accidents and take their own pictures.
My orchids died over a period of months
because I watered them too much, an undocumented death.
When Obama won, I watched Jesse Jackson cry on TV.
I was with a Buddhist priest, and we both
called our families.
A week later, Joan said it's the end of the age of irony,
and she looked so small and frail.
I felt guilty for betraying my own sense of hope.
Once you said I hope I'm not inspiring a poem
when I left you drunk on the couch.
It was 6:00 in the evening."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
So Stephanie, you said no encore,
but are you still up for some questions.
Yes, absolutely.
[CHUCKLES] Or not.
[LAUGHTER]
Stephanie?