Before a break, I'll read a shorter one next,
and then I have two long ones and a short one
and a long one if you can bear with me.
If I think you're running out of patience, I'll stop.
Before-- this is like my new.
This is written after I actually turned in my manuscript
which I turned it in last May.
And I wasn't going to put this in.
But then I thought that I read it at a school in Connecticut
where one of the women was from the Philippines.
And her sister, Mila Aguilar, is a woman poet
in the Philippines.
And she had been recently imprisoned.
Anyway, her sister was at the reading, and she said,
you should put it in the book.
And I thought about it.
And I think that it actually fits pretty well.
This is called "The Prisoner."
One-- Yesterday, the man who calls himself our father
made me crawl on smashed Coke bottles.
Today, I sleep.
I think I sleep till someone beats on the door with what?
Sticks, pans.
But I don't move.
I'm used to it.
Still when our father rushes into the room and drags me out,
I feel the old fear.
In the interrogation room, he knocks me to the floor,
then sits on the side of his desk, his arms folded.
That sad look on his face I know so well.
He shakes his head slowly, stops and smiles.
I've got something special today,
he says, for a fucking horror of a terrorist bitch.
I want to say nothing, knowing how denial angers him.
But I can't stop myself.
I'm not a terrorist, I say.
That's not what I heard, he replies, standing up.
Aren't you the friend of a friend
of a friend of a terrorist son of a bitch who
was heard two years ago to say that someone
ought to do something about this government?
I don't answer.
Already, I've begun to admit that it must be true.
I lakc just one thing, he says.
The name.
I know you think you're innocent.
But you aren't.
Everyone is guilty.
He slaps me, then pushes one side of my face
toward the green glass.
Two-- I've been stung by a swarm of bees.
I'm eight.
I'm running for the pond on my uncle Oscar's farm.
Oscar, I cried.
Our father sighs deeply.
Lifts me up and sets me down in a chair.
Where's Oscar, he said, handing me a notebook and pen.
Where can I find him?
I don't hesitate as I take the pen
and set it down on a clean blank paper.
Three-- Our father lets me off a block from my apartment.
He keeps the motor running but comes and leans against the car
beside me.
I try to guess the month.
March, April, I say.
He tells me it's September.
To just take a look at the sky.
Then he tells me he was a prisoner once too.
I stare at his face, the dry, sallow skin,
the long scar running from temple to chin.
Oh, this?
He touches the scar gently.
I got this playing soccer.
No, the real scars don't show.
You should know that.
You need time, though, to sort it all out.
I'm still a young man, he says, but sometimes I
feel as old as the Bible.
But this, this is a celebration.
He takes a bottle of wine from the car,
and we drink while the stars glitter above us.
Done, he tosses the bottle into the street.
Freedom, he says.
Freedom is something you earn.
The others don't understand that.
But we do."
[APPLAUSE]
Only applaud if you really think they're good.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm not a person who craves or needs--
well, no.
I'm not going to say that.
I was going to say, I'm not a person
who craves or needs flattery.
But we all do.
Strike that.
I like it as much as anybody.