I felt that what happened, I just realized,
at the end of my first book there's a poem called "Prayer."
Which is a prayer about wanting to keep in touch with what
seems central to me, which is really the body,
even though I knew that wasn't what
seems central to a lot of other people.
And then I just noticed that this one ends--
it's a kind of prayer in a way.
The business about the dream of ruling
the world, one's own world.
Just one's own space.
The third book is in four parts.
And I'll read one or two poems for each part.
I've written a lot of World War II poems
in the last five years, a lot of family poems.
And it wasn't until maybe about four years ago
that I started writing poems that
feel too like a combination of war poems and family poems.
And those are New York City poems--
[LAUGHTER]
--where I've lived for 20 years.
I grew up in California.
And I lived in New York City for 20 years.
And I've been on tough block in a tough neighborhood--
beautiful, beautiful, and tough.
So I'll read one of those city poems now, "On the Subway."
"The boy and I face each other.
His feet are huge in black sneakers laced
with white and a complex pattern like a set
of intentional scars.
We are stuck on opposite sides of the car.
A couple of molecules stuck in a rod of light,
rapidly moving through darkness.
He has the casual, cold look of a mugger,
alert under hooded limbs.
He is wearing red, like the inside of the body exposed.
I'm wearing dark fur, the whole skin
of an animal taken and used.
I look at his raw face.
He looks at my fur coat.
And I don't know if I am in his power.
He could take my coat so easily, my briefcase, my life.
Or if he is in my power, the way I'm living off his life, eating
the steak he does not eat, as if I am
taking the food from his mouth.
And he is Black and I am white.
And without meaning or trying to,
I must profit from his darkness.
The way he absorbs the murderous beams of the nation's heart
as black cotton absorbs the heat of the sun and holds it.
There is no way to know how easy this white skin makes my life.
This life he could take so easily
and break across his knee like a stick, the way his own back
is being broken.
The rod of his soul that it both was dark
and amber, which is the heart of a seedling ready to
thrust up into any available light."
[APPLAUSE]