What I tried to do -- in a way consciously--
I used to sort of kill off my characters.
And I'm not really doing that anymore.
They have to go on.
They have to find a way to live with who and what they are.
Now more than in the past.
It's a convenient way for the writers out there.
It's one of-- especially beginning writers
who just kill off the character in fiction and poetry.
I see it on TV too.
I do watch TV.
Tonight I'm giving up Dynasty to read.
Trashy, trash night, Wednesday night, at least for me.
See, I have to make a decision here.
I'm also kind of saving myself because the last few poems are
real--
they're longer.
My new poems are a lot longer and they're very tiring.
And I want to read as many of the better new ones as I can.
This is called "Immortality."
I dreamed I was digging a grave that kept filling with water.
The next day you died.
I dressed you in a wool skirt and jacket
because you were always cold and I had promised
to do that much for you.
Then I took a potato to eat, went outside
and started to dig.
I thought of the Great War, the day we met.
You, thin as a spade handle, wearing cotton in deep winter.
The sunset a clot of dull red floating
in a bowl of cobalt blue as we lay on our backs in the mud.
My hand on your mons and yours pushing at it,
pushing it away, just like that.
And just like that, we parted.
Then one day you found me hoeing potatoes.
Let me help, you said, and handed me
a child with bright red hair like yours.
I married you.
We fought.
Blood sanctifies and blesses.
Blesses, it binds.
Anna, where are you now?
Waltzing down a long mirrored corridor
wrapped in glory that is red, bitter.
I toss a shovel full of dirt on your coffin.
It isn't that I hate you for giving it
all up with your poison.
But I wanted to do it, to finally ease this hunger
to be holy in my devotion to you,
and have you acknowledge it the moment
before I brought the mallet down and set you free.
Life to you was yellow, like the vicar's daughter's braids.
It was morning glories, All Hallows' Eve,
your dead sister's baby teeth for good luck.
But I wanted us to go on day and night without terror or hope.
I can't forgive your going.
I take the potato from my pocket: one bite, then another.
If only this were all it took to live forever.
[APPLAUSE]
I'm torn between telling you to wait
but actually the ego part of me wants
you to applaud when you feel like it.
So just keep it up.
The thing is, see what happens though when you're reading,
is sometimes like, "Oh, they didn't
applaud for the last three."
You start and there's a whole psychic thing that goes on.
It's really weird.
OK.