I think the rest of the time I'll just read newer poems.
I read recently at the University of New Hampshire
and a student asked me ahead of time
whether I would be reading from my books
or reading future work.
[LAUGHTER]
And I like that phrase so much that I like
to think of future work, so.
It's a little poem called The Wish.
I trust you all can hear me all right, right?
Mhm.
That sounded like an all in grunt.
I recognize that sound.
The Wish.
My daughter comes to me with her sorrow.
She is not yet 10, not yet insistent for her father.
As if waiting out a sentence, she
sits at the round table, her long black shawl of hair
framing high cheekbones.
She thinks she is ugly, thinks she has no friends.
How can I comfort?
What should I try to tell this radiant coincidence of genes?
That children can be beasts to one another?
That envy eats us from the inside?
All great beauties doubted their beauty, I tell her,
but why should she believe me?
I am her mother and ask repeatedly for beauty,
meaning happiness.