And I'll close with this, "The First Two Weeks."
When I wonder about myself, I remember the first two weeks
of my life.
How I was drenched with happiness.
Birth was easy, the wall opened like liquid.
I felt like part of my scalp slid through my head.
I pushed off from the side and sailed gently, turned.
Squeezed out neatly into the cold bright air
and breathed it.
Cleaned, wrapped, I slept.
And when I woke, there was the breast the size of my head,
hard and sweet, the springy [bracket?_] of a nipple.
Sleep, milk, heat.
Two weeks of milk and sleep.
Once a day she held me up to the window,
and wagged my fist at my sister down in the street.
Who waved her cone back at me so hard,
the ice cream flew through the air
like a butter brick or cannonball.
But otherwise, it was fire and silk, sleep and milk.
By day my mother's, and by night the nurses
in the feeding station would prop me with a bottle.
Paradise had its laws too.
Every four hours and not a minute sooner, I could drink,
but every four hours I could have all I wanted.
The world in my mouth, solo orbit of my soft palate,
little Earth of the tongue quarreling with it.
Two weeks to let the mother heal, and then home.
To the maid's room down at the end of the long hall,
far from my mother.
While at night, the nanny gave me four ounces of water
every four hours.
And in the meantime, I screamed for it.
The world would build my character, two weeks old
to learn to give up and I learned it.
Down in the street, Saturn, the planet of the breast,
the beep, the boiled sheet to be placed on where
my sister couldn't touch me.
I lay and moved my legs and arms like little feelers
in the light.
Glorious life!
And it would always be there.
Back behind those nights of screaming
in tap water, all the way back, I would always have it.
That two weeks of enough milk every four hours,
hot little clock of sweet cream and flame.
I have known heaven.
Well done.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]