WEBVTT

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And next to last,
the penultimate poem.

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Since we are here in
the Southwest perhaps I,

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almost by obligation,
should read

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you a poem about Navajo rugs.

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Behind my house is not a
Navajo church, a Mormon church.

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And I've got scads and scads
of poems about Mormons.

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Although, I don't know
very much about them.

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It's only what I pick
up across the alley

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as they go into dances and
playing basketball and things.

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But as you know, if you may be
a member of the Mormon church,

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they're pretty
clean-living folk.

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And they go to bed early.

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And sometimes I feel
guilty when, at 10 o'clock,

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all the light lights go
off and the noises stop.

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And I'm still going.

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So this is called Navajo Rug.

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At 10 o'clock sharp, the
Mormons stop singing.

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We hear them slapping
together their folding chairs,

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rushing home to practice
behind closed lids what

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they'll sing again tomorrow
morning in saving daylight.

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I throw more twigs into
the beehive mouth of fire,

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waltz around with
a bottle of wine.

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For the next few hours, we
play checkers, pick-up sticks,

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retelling our common
stories until, deep

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in the morning,
those suns, blurred

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notes, yellow lozenges
begin dancing goat-like

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across the Navajo
rug I bought years

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ago up in Tuba City from an
[INAUDIBLE] medicine man.

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Preview of sleep, of other
things coming at us tomorrow,

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clothed in daylight.

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