I don't know.
This one makes me very nervous to read.
I guess I'll read it.
I don't think I've ever read it at a poetry reading
because it bothers me.
The reason it bothers me is because, yeah, I always
like to make happy endings in some way
or I want to turn everything around for good.
And this one-- it was the closest
I've come to realizing that I hated somebody.
And so I wrote this poem called "If I Think About You Again,
It Will Be the 53rd Monday of Next Year."
[LAUGHTER]
So I'll read it.
I guess I couldn't say, no, I don't want to read that now.
And I guess--
OK, I'll read it.
But it helped me get over it.
"A musical animal like weather report blows
to the black market on this snowy Monday.
And I can go anywhere I want.
So why does this sound lead to the face of the only one
I could have hated?
Hatred is a vice that smells like four mutilated cats,
smoking in a gasoline fire, and worse.
And here I am, stirring an imagination that
has always got me into trouble, thinking
what I could do to you.
It wouldn't be pretty as the dusk sun slipping from one bed
to the next or feel like a solitary fish on the dance
floor with a woman you have loved forever.
Nothing like that is what I would do to you.
I could make you the fifth cat and turn my back.
I could say your name backwards and send it to a warring star.
Or better yet, erase it.
Your whole story, a sterile page.
And I would rewrite it without you in it.
Yes, let me begin with a day like this,
a musical animal like weather report blowing
through the black market on this snowy, snowy Monday.
And I can go anywhere I want, and do, without you.
[APPLAUSE]
OK.