WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.190 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:02.190 --> 00:00:03.030 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.030 --> 00:00:08.940 align:middle line:84% This poem, I wrote when I was working at the Poetry Center 00:00:08.940 --> 00:00:15.013 align:middle line:84% and I had to lecture a freshman class on The Great Gatsby. 00:00:15.013 --> 00:00:18.470 align:middle line:90% 00:00:18.470 --> 00:00:21.335 align:middle line:84% "Unrequited Elegy with Gatsby's Shirts." 00:00:21.335 --> 00:00:24.110 align:middle line:90% 00:00:24.110 --> 00:00:26.650 align:middle line:90% "I know how you wanted her. 00:00:26.650 --> 00:00:29.140 align:middle line:90% Those billboards of reinvention. 00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:29.980 align:middle line:90% The crowd. 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:32.670 align:middle line:90% The avenue eyesores. 00:00:32.670 --> 00:00:35.550 align:middle line:90% I know you were driving. 00:00:35.550 --> 00:00:39.930 align:middle line:84% Hot August Sundays are interchangeable from the city 00:00:39.930 --> 00:00:41.640 align:middle line:90% to East Egg. 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:45.090 align:middle line:84% The dark ache in an impossible pink suit, 00:00:45.090 --> 00:00:48.300 align:middle line:84% pining at a window from the tree line. 00:00:48.300 --> 00:00:52.160 align:middle line:84% The moonlight whispers something altruistic. 00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:55.310 align:middle line:84% I've heard that same whisper, crouched low 00:00:55.310 --> 00:00:59.450 align:middle line:84% in my teenage Toyota, parked down the street from a girl's 00:00:59.450 --> 00:01:04.280 align:middle line:84% house, watching a single lighted room in the too-late hours. 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:07.490 align:middle line:84% How it smelled like the oil ticking in every engine 00:01:07.490 --> 00:01:10.400 align:middle line:90% from here to the East Side. 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:12.950 align:middle line:84% The green light at the end of her dock 00:01:12.950 --> 00:01:16.520 align:middle line:84% was as close as you dared get, but the self 00:01:16.520 --> 00:01:20.670 align:middle line:84% you'd baked from scratch required validation. 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:24.830 align:middle line:84% Once, in my newest incarnation, I was a measure away 00:01:24.830 --> 00:01:27.560 align:middle line:84% from telling that girl, I have something to give you. 00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:30.330 align:middle line:90% I don't want it anymore. 00:01:30.330 --> 00:01:34.020 align:middle line:84% Five years of rehearsal failed me. 00:01:34.020 --> 00:01:37.920 align:middle line:84% I balked in that space between breath and kiss, 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:42.030 align:middle line:84% because the truth is, I might as well have thrown a crumbling 00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:46.620 align:middle line:84% brick, love me, scratched across one face in indelible ink, 00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:49.740 align:middle line:90% right through her window. 00:01:49.740 --> 00:01:52.140 align:middle line:84% I should have shattered that winsome torture 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:56.010 align:middle line:84% with the reality of her lips, the violence of her freckles 00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:57.960 align:middle line:90% against my cheek. 00:01:57.960 --> 00:02:00.660 align:middle line:84% But I couldn't have my threadbare self, 00:02:00.660 --> 00:02:04.020 align:middle line:84% newly elaborated and finally workable, 00:02:04.020 --> 00:02:08.910 align:middle line:84% undone by something as difficult as a kiss five years 00:02:08.910 --> 00:02:11.090 align:middle line:90% in its coming. 00:02:11.090 --> 00:02:13.190 align:middle line:84% I should have shattered the space between us 00:02:13.190 --> 00:02:14.810 align:middle line:90% like an accident. 00:02:14.810 --> 00:02:16.310 align:middle line:90% I was a measure away. 00:02:16.310 --> 00:02:20.510 align:middle line:84% Her waist and hips, the reality of her lips, a tailor ripping 00:02:20.510 --> 00:02:22.850 align:middle line:90% the seams in a shirt sleeve. 00:02:22.850 --> 00:02:25.980 align:middle line:84% I might have shattered the space between us. 00:02:25.980 --> 00:02:29.080 align:middle line:90% I should have thrown that brick. 00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:31.510 align:middle line:90% I know how you wanted her. 00:02:31.510 --> 00:02:34.600 align:middle line:84% Your greatest moment casting your brand new shirts 00:02:34.600 --> 00:02:35.650 align:middle line:90% across the bed. 00:02:35.650 --> 00:02:38.350 align:middle line:90% How they fell like invention. 00:02:38.350 --> 00:02:40.900 align:middle line:90% Sleeves, collars, and cuffs. 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:42.700 align:middle line:90% Broadcloth and oxford. 00:02:42.700 --> 00:02:45.220 align:middle line:90% Every color, weave and print. 00:02:45.220 --> 00:02:49.780 align:middle line:84% An avalanche of cotton and almost. 00:02:49.780 --> 00:02:52.810 align:middle line:84% You hoped she'd pick just one favorite. 00:02:52.810 --> 00:02:56.770 align:middle line:84% One you could slip your arms into with a flourish 00:02:56.770 --> 00:02:58.510 align:middle line:90% of stiff starch. 00:02:58.510 --> 00:03:03.340 align:middle line:84% Because in that color and cut, she would love you. 00:03:03.340 --> 00:03:08.550 align:middle line:84% Instead, she cried at all your beautiful shirts. 00:03:08.550 --> 00:03:11.640 align:middle line:84% You couldn't know the space between you 00:03:11.640 --> 00:03:18.460 align:middle line:84% was already a boot, stuck in the estuary past. 00:03:18.460 --> 00:03:22.480 align:middle line:84% I imagine floating silver and pneumatic alone 00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:27.310 align:middle line:84% across the pool, watching the tawny autumn fall consequently 00:03:27.310 --> 00:03:31.090 align:middle line:84% across the water, falling stiff and regal 00:03:31.090 --> 00:03:33.310 align:middle line:90% as shirts across a bed. 00:03:33.310 --> 00:03:39.930 align:middle line:84% We should both be stoned for our pride and omissions".