WEBVTT

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So here's a poem
called "Rapture."

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"Rapture."

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"I can feel that she
has got out of bed.

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That means it is 7:00 AM.

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I have been lying
here with eyes closed,

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thinking how she might look
if, at breakfast, we suddenly

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started talking about that
hidden place in her, that

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is like a soprano's tremolo,
which can't be named

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or the resemblance might vanish.

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And right then, at the
breakfast table, she came.

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I imagine she would show it
while trying to conceal it.

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I imagine her hair would
fall around her face,

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and she would become
apparently downcast,

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as she does at a concert
when she is moved.

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I open my eyes,
and there she is,

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next to the bed without clothes
on, bending to a low drawer

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picking over various small,
smooth, white, and pink items

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of underwear.

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She bends so close her torso
is parallel to the Earth,

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and yet her back
has no sway in it.

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There is little burden,
the day has hardly begun.

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But her breasts fall
full, yearn down.

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Their nipples are deep
pink, where light shining up

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from the gates under
the Earth behind which

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those who could not love,
press, wanting to be born again

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and to start over, touches them.

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The two lumps of fast-walking,
leaping, lovemaking muscles

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look toward the sky.

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They have no
counterpart on Earth.

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I reach out and touch her arm,
and she falls back into bed,

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and at once starts
unbuttoning my pajamas.

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Later, I open my
eyes, and there she

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is again, bending
at the same drawer,

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examining the underwear.

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The clock shows 8:00 AM.

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With huge, smooth effort
of mounded turning muscles,

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the Earth has been
turning again.

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She takes a glittering piece
of cloth from the drawer

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and stands up.

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Under the falls
of hair, her face

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has become quiet and
downcast, as if she will be,

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all day among the
strangers, looking down

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inside herself at our rapture."

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[APPLAUSE]

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