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Jon Anderson just
asked if I were

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going to read from my collected
poems and my corrected prose,

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and that's what I'm
going to be doing.

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Water woman.

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Thanks.

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You're welcome.

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I'm going to read two poems
from a recent manuscript.

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The first one is called
The Bridge of Sighs.

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Believe me when I
tell you, I have

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tried to understand pleasure,
the beginning of pleasure.

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How I watched my
mother that morning

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lounging in the red plush
chair in the gray submerging

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shadows of the parlor as
she talked on the phone.

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How I stared with
each of my five years

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at the tender curve
of her ankle as

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it moved down the high instep
of her dry, clean, pale and

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perfect foot and over the
toes underneath to the arch.

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Oh, it just leapt.

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More delicate than the arches
of the bridges of Venice

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built by those
gentlemen, the Doges.

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Paved by the feet of
centuries of lovers

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and saved from destruction
by the American soldiers

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on a similar morning as I
watched my mother's foot tense

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and relax.

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And when she smiled down
her long body at me,

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and stroked my
hair, and offered me

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the smooth beauty of
her foot, and asked me,

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yes, to rub it just a little.

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She said right into the
phone to whomever, ah.

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The ah of the
beginning of pleasure,

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that demand even as
it gives itself up,

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that leaves you always
ready to begin, always

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on the lip of things.

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Like a young woman standing
by the bridge of sighs,

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waving goodbye to the
soldiers of the losing side,

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waving hello to the soldiers
of the winning side.

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