WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.540 --> 00:00:02.955 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read a different poem. 00:00:02.955 --> 00:00:04.410 align:middle line:90% A different kind of poem. 00:00:04.410 --> 00:00:09.120 align:middle line:90% It's in seven short sections. 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:12.945 align:middle line:84% The title of it is "White Lanterns," and it's an elegy. 00:00:12.945 --> 00:00:15.700 align:middle line:90% 00:00:15.700 --> 00:00:16.540 align:middle line:90% "White Lanterns." 00:00:16.540 --> 00:00:18.010 align:middle line:90% "One. 00:00:18.010 --> 00:00:22.180 align:middle line:90% Visiting Accounting, 1960. 00:00:22.180 --> 00:00:24.900 align:middle line:90% The numbers hypnotize. 00:00:24.900 --> 00:00:28.110 align:middle line:84% Beside her desk, the three squat adding machines 00:00:28.110 --> 00:00:31.170 align:middle line:84% confetti the floor with paper strips 00:00:31.170 --> 00:00:36.090 align:middle line:84% in ever widening spirals, and her gaze dances 00:00:36.090 --> 00:00:39.900 align:middle line:84% to ledgers exhaling their breath of dust. 00:00:39.900 --> 00:00:43.500 align:middle line:84% A Dickens scene transplanted to the '60s, 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:47.430 align:middle line:84% to General Tire or Northwest Bank. 00:00:47.430 --> 00:00:50.970 align:middle line:90% The columns hypnotize. 00:00:50.970 --> 00:00:54.300 align:middle line:84% Released from Dr. Thorson, my molar 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:56.610 align:middle line:90% wrapped in tissue in my hand. 00:00:56.610 --> 00:00:59.820 align:middle line:90% I peer into her office door. 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:02.700 align:middle line:90% Lost in her lacemaker's trance-- 00:01:02.700 --> 00:01:07.380 align:middle line:84% the figures hypnotize-- she sees numbers constellate 00:01:07.380 --> 00:01:10.770 align:middle line:90% into rows but not her son. 00:01:10.770 --> 00:01:15.360 align:middle line:84% Sixes and zeros comet down relentlessly as sleet. 00:01:15.360 --> 00:01:18.540 align:middle line:84% The addition and subtraction of these moments 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:20.670 align:middle line:90% that compose a life. 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:24.120 align:middle line:84% This one to debit, this one to credit. 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:25.920 align:middle line:90% She looks up. 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:31.570 align:middle line:84% This one to crimson lipstick, vapor lights. 00:01:31.570 --> 00:01:33.550 align:middle line:90% Two. 00:01:33.550 --> 00:01:38.080 align:middle line:90% Study, 1988. 00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:42.280 align:middle line:84% Her lipstick's crimson in the vapor light. 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:46.210 align:middle line:84% The funeral home basement and the undertaker's 00:01:46.210 --> 00:01:50.440 align:middle line:84% bent to pry the casket hinges up for us. 00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:57.870 align:middle line:84% No lambent painterly shadowplay, only stark fluorescent clarity. 00:01:57.870 --> 00:02:00.480 align:middle line:90% She's no one anymore. 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:03.690 align:middle line:84% Only the Christmas-and-New Year's dress tentlike 00:02:03.690 --> 00:02:07.380 align:middle line:84% on the wasted body, only a face half 00:02:07.380 --> 00:02:12.360 align:middle line:84% hers, half a cosmetician's caricature, Jerrybuilt 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:16.800 align:middle line:84% from photos in a borrowed family album. 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:20.610 align:middle line:84% Why must my mind so brokenly conjure 00:02:20.610 --> 00:02:26.070 align:middle line:84% this stranger's distracted study of wig and cheekbones, 00:02:26.070 --> 00:02:30.390 align:middle line:84% dental plates, of each bad polaroid of family 00:02:30.390 --> 00:02:32.730 align:middle line:90% dinners, summer cookouts. 00:02:32.730 --> 00:02:39.270 align:middle line:84% His tools fixing the exact shape of her mouth. 00:02:39.270 --> 00:02:40.820 align:middle line:90% Three. 00:02:40.820 --> 00:02:44.430 align:middle line:90% Harlequins, 1962." 00:02:44.430 --> 00:02:48.770 align:middle line:90% This is as in Harlequin romance. 00:02:48.770 --> 00:02:52.280 align:middle line:84% "I remember the exact shape of her mouth, 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:55.850 align:middle line:84% the dimestore novels on her lap, the lips 00:02:55.850 --> 00:03:01.640 align:middle line:84% working silent incantations, the threadbare couch. 00:03:01.640 --> 00:03:05.180 align:middle line:84% She's in Rio tonight or Pernambuco, 00:03:05.180 --> 00:03:08.870 align:middle line:84% and I'm up past midnight, creeping to the living room 00:03:08.870 --> 00:03:11.720 align:middle line:90% to tell her I can't sleep. 00:03:11.720 --> 00:03:16.970 align:middle line:84% My father is on the road again, the Fargo-Minot-Whitefish run. 00:03:16.970 --> 00:03:21.980 align:middle line:84% And I'm alone with her all week, The Man of the House. 00:03:21.980 --> 00:03:24.590 align:middle line:84% Her gin glass sweating on the table. 00:03:24.590 --> 00:03:26.270 align:middle line:90% I watch her doze. 00:03:26.270 --> 00:03:29.150 align:middle line:90% The book dropped to the floor. 00:03:29.150 --> 00:03:33.920 align:middle line:84% All night she's tangoed with suave pencil-mustached 00:03:33.920 --> 00:03:35.570 align:middle line:90% generalissimos. 00:03:35.570 --> 00:03:40.370 align:middle line:84% A rose in her teeth, absinthe and milky Pernod. 00:03:40.370 --> 00:03:44.900 align:middle line:84% But now she's mine again, waking with a start. 00:03:44.900 --> 00:03:50.990 align:middle line:84% David, fill the glass for me, I've got such a thirst. 00:03:50.990 --> 00:03:52.220 align:middle line:90% Four. 00:03:52.220 --> 00:03:55.940 align:middle line:90% Morphine, 1988. 00:03:55.940 --> 00:03:57.980 align:middle line:90% Johnny, fill the syringe for me. 00:03:57.980 --> 00:04:01.010 align:middle line:90% All the pain's come back. 00:04:01.010 --> 00:04:05.450 align:middle line:84% Perhaps now she can sleep or watch TV or stare 00:04:05.450 --> 00:04:06.890 align:middle line:90% at Midwest winter. 00:04:06.890 --> 00:04:11.300 align:middle line:84% Snow falling vertically from here to Hudson's Bay. 00:04:11.300 --> 00:04:14.300 align:middle line:84% The flakes strike the new picture window, 00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:18.140 align:middle line:84% and he fumbles with the syringe, waits through the game 00:04:18.140 --> 00:04:23.390 align:middle line:84% shows that she hates until she's gentled into sleep. 00:04:23.390 --> 00:04:26.330 align:middle line:84% And when she's still, he dozes too, 00:04:26.330 --> 00:04:29.090 align:middle line:84% fetal on the couch, the sponge he 00:04:29.090 --> 00:04:32.480 align:middle line:84% dabbed her forehead with falling damp from his hand 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:34.550 align:middle line:90% to the floor. 00:04:34.550 --> 00:04:38.690 align:middle line:84% Refrigerator hum, the clock spitting seconds, 00:04:38.690 --> 00:04:44.390 align:middle line:84% the seething storm, the dog chasing rabbits in dream. 00:04:44.390 --> 00:04:46.220 align:middle line:90% Let them sleep. 00:04:46.220 --> 00:04:49.490 align:middle line:84% Sleep as the spectral evening shadows 00:04:49.490 --> 00:04:52.640 align:middle line:84% come to blur the window, the snowflakes' 00:04:52.640 --> 00:04:56.400 align:middle line:90% numb white lanterns. 00:04:56.400 --> 00:04:57.810 align:middle line:90% Five. 00:04:57.810 --> 00:05:02.240 align:middle line:90% Walking to School, 1964. 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.880 align:middle line:84% Blurring the window, the snowflakes' 00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:07.010 align:middle line:90% numb white lanterns. 00:05:07.010 --> 00:05:08.900 align:middle line:90% She's brewed her coffee. 00:05:08.900 --> 00:05:12.950 align:middle line:84% In the bathroom sprays cologne and sets her lipstick upright 00:05:12.950 --> 00:05:14.600 align:middle line:90% on the sink. 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:18.290 align:middle line:84% The door ajar, I glimpse the yellow slip, 00:05:18.290 --> 00:05:21.860 align:middle line:84% the rose-colored birthmark on her shoulder. 00:05:21.860 --> 00:05:26.840 align:middle line:84% Then she's dressed-- the pillbox hat and ersatz fur. 00:05:26.840 --> 00:05:32.430 align:middle line:84% And I'm dressed too, mummified in stocking cap and scarves. 00:05:32.430 --> 00:05:34.310 align:middle line:84% And I walk her to the bus stop where 00:05:34.310 --> 00:05:38.060 align:middle line:84% she'll leave me for my own walk to school, 00:05:38.060 --> 00:05:41.840 align:middle line:84% where she'll board the bus that zigzags to St. Paul. 00:05:41.840 --> 00:05:45.920 align:middle line:84% As I watch her in the window, the paperback romance 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:48.450 align:middle line:90% already open on her lap. 00:05:48.450 --> 00:05:51.440 align:middle line:90% The bus laboring off into snow. 00:05:51.440 --> 00:05:58.550 align:middle line:84% Her goodbye kiss still startling my cheek with lipstick trace. 00:05:58.550 --> 00:05:59.780 align:middle line:90% Six. 00:05:59.780 --> 00:06:04.120 align:middle line:90% Picture Window, 1987. 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:08.500 align:middle line:84% Spattering the room with the snowy trace of plaster dust, 00:06:08.500 --> 00:06:11.950 align:middle line:84% the carpenters have worked all week, 00:06:11.950 --> 00:06:14.830 align:middle line:84% and the pane they're fitting will be huge, 00:06:14.830 --> 00:06:19.300 align:middle line:84% posed to frame the brown November lawn. 00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:24.910 align:middle line:84% Thanksgiving break and we arrive to stacked lumber, sawhorses, 00:06:24.910 --> 00:06:28.540 align:middle line:84% the living room a stage or excavation. 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:31.870 align:middle line:90% Wig askew, she slowly rises. 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:35.530 align:middle line:84% The pain is worse since last month's visit. 00:06:35.530 --> 00:06:39.940 align:middle line:84% But she only complains about the carpenters. 00:06:39.940 --> 00:06:43.750 align:middle line:84% Two of them are Negroes, and you know how they are. 00:06:43.750 --> 00:06:47.770 align:middle line:84% Your father has to watch them all the time. 00:06:47.770 --> 00:06:50.950 align:middle line:84% The chemo's bleached her eyebrows to down, 00:06:50.950 --> 00:06:55.000 align:middle line:84% her voice a rasp from radiation, red burn 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.090 align:middle line:90% etching her throat and face. 00:06:58.090 --> 00:07:03.130 align:middle line:84% Pineboards, hammers, sacks of nails, and now 00:07:03.130 --> 00:07:06.530 align:middle line:90% the stiff embrace." 00:07:06.530 --> 00:07:07.580 align:middle line:90% Last section. 00:07:07.580 --> 00:07:12.320 align:middle line:90% "Writing Desk, 1989. 00:07:12.320 --> 00:07:15.920 align:middle line:84% Frost starred window, rented house, 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:21.260 align:middle line:84% the stiff embrace we share in photographs above my desk. 00:07:21.260 --> 00:07:24.200 align:middle line:84% Mother and father, mother and son, 00:07:24.200 --> 00:07:30.230 align:middle line:84% faces sharing noses, cheekbones, our immeasurable strangeness 00:07:30.230 --> 00:07:32.570 align:middle line:90% to each other. 00:07:32.570 --> 00:07:36.770 align:middle line:84% Perspective is a lie, a blurred collage. 00:07:36.770 --> 00:07:41.810 align:middle line:84% And where does it carry us, this trio nodding on Christmas 00:07:41.810 --> 00:07:45.560 align:middle line:84% morning from a 30-year-old Chevy, window 00:07:45.560 --> 00:07:52.280 align:middle line:84% spattered with frost, colorless now, outside of history? 00:07:52.280 --> 00:07:57.170 align:middle line:84% How would she tally fragments such as these? 00:07:57.170 --> 00:08:01.070 align:middle line:84% I must be watching from the half-lit hallway 00:08:01.070 --> 00:08:03.800 align:middle line:90% as she bends to the numbers. 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:06.140 align:middle line:90% Neither of us speaks. 00:08:06.140 --> 00:08:12.050 align:middle line:84% I move to the door, the churn of the adding machines fixing us 00:08:12.050 --> 00:08:12.920 align:middle line:90% here. 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:15.970 align:middle line:90% The columns hypnotize." 00:08:15.970 --> 00:08:17.000 align:middle line:90%