Thank you.
Thank you both.
First, let me be practical and see, how can you hear me?
Fine.
Yeah?
And if I talk over here, can you still hear me over here?
Uh-huh.
Or if I talk up or if I talk down, do I have a range here?
Yeah?
Yeah.
Oh great, great OK.
All right, I'm going to start by reading a few poems
from The Dead and The Living.
And then I'm going to read some poems from my third book, which
will come out I think in January, next January.
And then I'll read poems more recent than that.
I'm going to start with a few poems
from the end of this book.
No matter how many times I read, my mouth gets dry,
my hands shake in honor of poetry.
The One Girl at the Boys' Party.
When I take my girl to the swimming party,
I set her down among the boys.
They tower and bristle.
She stands there smooth and sleek,
her math scores unfolding in the air around her.
They will strip to their suits, her body hard and indivisible
as a prime number.
They'll plunge in the deep end, she'll
subtract her height from 10 feet, divide it into hundreds
of gallons of water.
The numbers bouncing in her mind like molecules of chlorine
in the great blue pool.
When they climb out, her ponytail
will hang its pencil lead down her back.
Her narrow silk suit with hamburgers
and French fries printed on it will
glisten in the brilliant air.
And they will see her sweet face, solemn and sealed,
a factor of one.
And she will see their eyes, two each, their legs, two each
and the curves of their sexes, one each.
And in her head, she'll be doing her wild multiplying,
as the drops sparkle and fall to the power of 1,000
through her body.