WEBVTT

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Thank you so much for
that introduction, Diana.

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First off, I want to thank you
for organizing this reading.

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It's been a really
weird season, and I'm

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so happy to be able to
join folks even digitally

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to show off the work that
I've done as part of this.

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I also want to thank sam
sax for selecting my work,

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and the University of
Arizona Poetry Center

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for that affirmation of my
work, and all of the support

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they've given.

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I'm going to open up with one
of the poems I applied with,

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and this poem is after sam sax.

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"Aubade beginning in handcuffs.

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Sometimes I pronounce
aubade 'obeyed'

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for the way this particular
desire stumbles the tongue.

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Hunger's vocabulary
is a fickle thing.

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How many lovers have said
that they adore me, but meant,

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instead, they saw in me a
door, a thing to be opened?

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Language shifts an
image like the light.

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To lash can mean
both beat and bind.

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I'm lashed against the
bed by dawn's red blaze.

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The whole room, welted tidy
by the sky between the blinds.

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To cuff can also
mean to hold or harm,

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each word doubled body
and a body's shadow.

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And all at once, I
flicker beneath me.

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I beg you to brew with me, and
so exchange faggot for fruit.

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Oh, how gentle lust
alters the body,

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conjugates prey into prayer.

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The history of handcuffs is
old as myth if memory serves.

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The legend goes a Greek hero
invented them to steal prophecy

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from the mouth of
a shapeshifter god,

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and the story gathered
blood from there.

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The root of the word
'religion' is a Latin verb

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meaning to bind, as
in the worshipper

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is bound to their god, two
hands paired in steel or prayer.

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When I say obey, I mean
I've chosen the softer

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side of every verb dulled,
the sharp edge of a memory

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see glass against my tongue.

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For the first time,
when the handcuffs

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steal lips unkiss my wrists, as
morning stains every surface,

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a fading bruise,
I'm already free.

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It's the first breath
after confession."

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Wow.

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