WEBVTT

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As I was saying this morning to
a wonderful classroom I was in,

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I was telling them how
much fun poetry is.

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And I got the opportunity--
one of the opportunities

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I've had since I started
writing poetry was

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to travel to other countries.

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You know how when Americans
go to other countries,

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they act like they
already know everything?

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That's why they don't like us.

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[CHUCKLES]

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So I was in Paris,
and people were like,

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oh, Paris, we've been there.

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I've been there.

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And so, when I got there--

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and this is a poem about
the joy of discovery,

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because my girlfriend
and I went to the Louvre.

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And we were in the Louvre so
long that when they closed it,

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they had send extra people
out to look for those two

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crazy colored girls.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Yeah, we were reaching
across the ropes,

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and touching the
paintings, and--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--taking flash photos of
stuff that was supposed

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to crumble if you took flash.

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We didn't care.

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It was just wonderful.

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It was just so much fun.

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And so this is a poem for
my friend Patricia Zamora,

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and it's called
"Doin' the Louvre."

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"You're a junkie just like I am.

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After we've dumped your
husband in the Louvre's cafe

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to sip the steaming tea
and chew on his poetry,

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we're off like schoolgirls,
screeching in duet,

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dazzled by the bright eternal
gasp of ancient things.

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We've got no business here,
home girl and compañera.

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We've got no business
closing our mouths

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around this sharp,
exquisite language,

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or savoring the sweet-tongued
squeeze of pastries,

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shiny cakes, and
shaved chocolates.

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We're of simpler stock--

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city and country dust,
collard greens, moon pies,

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bullet holes, and
basement slow dances.

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We are shamelessly
American, rough street girls

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with rusty knees, the flip
side of cocky Parisian wisps

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in slim cashmere coats
the color of tobacco.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Girlfriend, you and I are too
much scream for this place,

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but you're a junkie
just like I am.

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Too long denied access
to official beauty,

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we walk these streets
with our mouths open

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and faces tilted up, swallowing
everything, swallowing it

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all, much too much
scenery and sound

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for our thin American throats.

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We gawk at cathedrals with
their gargoyles bleached

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to an eerie snarl by
bright flashes of moon,

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say goodbye when we mean
yes, good morning when

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we mean how much, ask for
bread when we need the toilet.

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[LAUGHTER]

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We are amazed that no one is
asking for all of this back,

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that we are allowed to
bask in this city's light.

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I can still hear my mama
as plain and practical

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as a cast iron
skillet, child, you

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need to stop all that
foolishness over there

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in some France, where you
don't know nothing or nobody.

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Ain't no Black folks
over there nohow.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But I know you, old friend, with
your bright, burnished tangle

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of hair, and deep laugh.

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And right now, these
halls belong to us.

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There are bad girls loose
in the Louvre, girls

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soft as gunshots, girls
nourished and fueled

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by silvers, silks, and the
stone gaze of Napoleon.

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We laugh at the smashed
noses of Egyptian rulers,

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stare at the tiny mummified
feet of a young girl,

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mistake Goya for Gauguin,
and rub what surfaces we can,

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including the marble
cocks of towering deities.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But we say things like, hey, I
think I saw that on a postcard

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once.

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Or, do you know how
old this thing is?

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[LAUGHTER]

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How could the world
help but love us?

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We would give Venus our arms.

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After eight hours,
clicking our hungry heels

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and snapping illicit flash
photos in dark halls brimming

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with ancient music, we finally
find the Mona Lisa, alone,

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caged and antiseptic behind
that glass every woman wears.

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And we wonder how
best to free her,

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knowing she's a junkie
just like we are.

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She longs for our wild voices,
our naive, accidental beauty.

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She's aching to ditch that frame
and skip these hallowed halls

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with the home girls, mistake
the obscene for the exquisite,

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and gaze at unsolved
mysteries that just for once

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are not her own."

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[APPLAUSE]

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