WEBVTT

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And I'll close with this,
"The First Two Weeks."

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When I wonder about myself, I
remember the first two weeks

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of my life.

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How I was drenched
with happiness.

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Birth was easy, the
wall opened like liquid.

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I felt like part of my
scalp slid through my head.

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I pushed off from the side
and sailed gently, turned.

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Squeezed out neatly
into the cold bright air

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and breathed it.

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Cleaned, wrapped, I slept.

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And when I woke, there was the
breast the size of my head,

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hard and sweet, the springy
[bracket?_] of a nipple.

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Sleep, milk, heat.

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Two weeks of milk and sleep.

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Once a day she held
me up to the window,

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and wagged my fist at my
sister down in the street.

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Who waved her cone
back at me so hard,

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the ice cream flew
through the air

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like a butter brick
or cannonball.

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But otherwise, it was fire
and silk, sleep and milk.

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By day my mother's,
and by night the nurses

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in the feeding station
would prop me with a bottle.

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Paradise had its laws too.

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Every four hours and not a
minute sooner, I could drink,

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but every four hours I
could have all I wanted.

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The world in my mouth, solo
orbit of my soft palate,

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little Earth of the
tongue quarreling with it.

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Two weeks to let the
mother heal, and then home.

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To the maid's room down at
the end of the long hall,

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far from my mother.

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While at night, the nanny
gave me four ounces of water

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every four hours.

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And in the meantime,
I screamed for it.

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The world would build my
character, two weeks old

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to learn to give up
and I learned it.

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Down in the street, Saturn,
the planet of the breast,

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the beep, the boiled sheet
to be placed on where

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my sister couldn't touch me.

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I lay and moved my legs and
arms like little feelers

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in the light.

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Glorious life!

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And it would always be there.

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Back behind those
nights of screaming

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in tap water, all the way
back, I would always have it.

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That two weeks of enough
milk every four hours,

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hot little clock of
sweet cream and flame.

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I have known heaven.

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Well done.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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