I know I haven't won an Oscar or anything,
but I never thought I'd be here.
[LAUGHTER]
Don't worry.
I won't try to do any backflips or anything.
I need to say thank you to Frances Sjoberg,
to Gail, to Christine, and the Poetry Center,
also to Renee, to Tony, to the friends at Casa Libre,
to Janice's class, and they were really fantastic today,
also to my teachers when I was here.
I earned my MFA here, to Boyer Rickel,
to Alison Hawthorne Deming, to Jane,
to Jason Brown, Charlie Bertsch, Eric Hayot, Tenney Nathanson,
some of my favorite teachers when I was here.
And it's really an honor to read with Chicu and Brian tonight.
And thank you guys all for being here too.
I'd like to read just a little bit from this book
that I wrote when I lived in Tucson, which
is the first book I wrote.
And the book is called Suspension of a Secret
in Abandoned Rooms.
It takes its title from a book by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha,
it's a really amazing book called Dictee.
And yeah, this section is called "Engines and Lovers."
Picture an engine.
Now picture its gears, the pins and sockets,
the tin grease canister with its hummingbird nose, paraffin.
Turbines hum as the shuffle of men in the entry.
And a stitch that yields soldier sounds and a telling
before words assemble from opposed cylinders,
flesh-confused, curve-spoke flywheels, a pile of clothes,
soiled from gardening.
On your knees into the evening.
Bits of metal cut like saw blades
and polished like jewelry, meshed together.
Two bodies at the kitchen sink.
Brahms on the gramophone by the fire.
Only, an engine needs fluid or steam for heat,
a method for cooling, exhaust, a body, and then a way to begin.
If it's warm, I sleep on the back porch
or under the rear window on the bedroom floor
when the bed becomes too much to make.
Picture a giant steam engine in the basement
of a textile factory, Austria, 1920.
Now imagine a school teacher silently pacing,
inspecting the busted engine.
Enter four men.
Give them hammers.
And give them each a number, say, six or two.
Each man must strike the engine with his hammer and number.
And the engine will tick, shake, and begin again.
Dear L, since you've left your cabin in the fjords,
I have pulled the carpet away and rolled it
neatly behind the house.
And after the black leaves are dampened,
I spread them over the floorboards.
My bedroom reeks of tea and reminds me, wet, of you.
Now, tell the story of the engines you built,
the giant propeller you wanted so badly
to fit into a flying machine.
You had men build you a special combustion chamber
for diesel and rotary tests.
Fail.
Or that tiny machine for measuring
the blood and breath of mine-blown soldiers,
the second war's amputees.
What did the blood return you to?
Why are you hiding from me?
19 weeks, you were one note to my every third letter.
Even if all my words cross me, if your shame
doesn't keep me shut, I'm done with all the parts of me
you tried to fix.
It has dripped rain for a week straight.
My thoughts just correct themselves,
bickering, one after another until I
take the late train into the city to undo stickiness
of your absence.
This doesn't usually work.
Gray wood mice have burrowed into soggy carpet
behind the house, though mostly, I can't hear them at all.