WEBVTT

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And then, two more.

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Two more poems from this book.

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One called, "Clear Night."

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In Chinese mythology,
the cassia flower

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was on the moon, supposed
to be on the moon.

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It was also on the
Earth, a cassia tree.

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But it was also
mythologically on the--

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people wanted to say
lived on the moon.

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It didn't.

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It grew on the moon.

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"Clear Night"

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Clear night, thumb-top of
a moon, a back-lit sky.

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Moon-fingers lay down their
same routine on the side deck

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and the threshold, the white
keys and the black keys.

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Bird hush and birdsong.

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A cassia flower falls.

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I want to be bruised by God.

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I want to be strung up in a
strong light and singled out.

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I want to be
stretched, like music

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wrung from a dropped seed.

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I want to be entered
and picked clean.

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And the wind says "What?" to me.

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And the castor beans,
with their little earrings

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of death, say "What?" to me.

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And the stars start out on their
cold slide through the dark.

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And the gears notch
and the engines wheel.

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