You know, if you did graduate work here at the U of A,
to be reading in the Modern Languages Auditorium,
it's kind of the equivalent of going to Carnegie
Hall with poorer aesthetics.
This first poem-- and I'm going to read mostly poems from a new
manuscript that I've just finished entitled Late Empire--
the first one takes place in this neighborhood
in the Chicago where we're now living.
And it's Rogers Park, which is right in the northern part
of Chicago.
And it's kind of like the neighborhood you would
expect in a city 100 years ago.
It's still a melting pot neighborhood
that hasn't melted yet.
So in our neighborhood, you have a lot
of like Ukrainians, Estonians, Hispanics,
a lot of recent Russian Jewish immigrants.
So when you walk down the street,
you hear four or five different languages
on any kind of given block.
And that's partly in there.
There are some memories from childhood in too.
I'll just read the poem.
It's called "Human Form," Loyola Park.
"Two weeks past Labor Day, the lifeguard towers pulled down,
replaced by Ukrainian crones on benches,
chattering beyond the yuppie jogging
suit scoring crack from a second jogging suit, which nods.
Blink eyes and the deal's done.
The Black guy ambling off, the doctor,
lawyer, investment banker, unlocking the door of his BMW.
Mexican Independence Day, raised banderas
snapping beside braziers.
Women in armchair circles, men kicking
soccer balls, careful not to spill their cans of Pabst.
Local color, that's the way to start.
Voice off, long shot of the lake, caption.
Portrait of the author circa 1991 or two or three.
Time when the gods descend to walk the evening, human form.
May the author now erase himself.
He is tired of his small, mourning self.
He has a working title, Poem Without a Body Count.
And yet did the gods descend to bring his mother back
from last night's dream?
Bald from the chemo, raising herself from the car,
one shoe off, that's all.
Close up to the author, long shot of the lake, empty beach
but for this couple.
Operatically obese, each of them headphoned to a metal detector.
Cumbersome back and forth along the sand like stitchery.
The woman gestures and the man grunts back.
May the author now erase himself.
The woman bends down.
This shape she's taken, how slowly it sifts
through the sand with a trowel.
Catch anything?
Bottle caps, quarters, someone's cheap wedding ring,
electroplated, gleaming.
Yet this is not a wedding ring, but a coal
glowing as the woman, believe me as I say this,
places it upon the author's tongue.
Do the gods not have the power to bestow such gifts of vision?
And does the coal not burn me even as I speak?
I am nine again.
And helping her to stack the canned goods and radio
batteries in the basement fallout shelter.
For Khrushchev is sending missiles to Cuba.
And if my father comes home tomorrow or next week,
the room will be prepared.
And we shall enter it as if we were whole, a family.
The coal, searing orange, my tongue composed of fire.
My happiness as I hand her soup cans, bags of rice.
And from the flame, I watch her hand
reach out to touch my hair, run fingers through it absently.
Of fire she has fashioned me.
Of sparks flaring out with her strokes,
cascading, acetylene white."