So I'm going to read a few from "that's what you get,"
which is the book I put out during the pandemic
with Brooklyn Arts Press.
And the publishers are here tonight, Joe and Wendy.
It is awesome to have them here.
This little book is so random, and so much
fun bitterness that I really, I don't know,
it's held me up in these terrible, terrible times.
Yeah, this one's a lot more fun because I'm young,
and this one's a lot more fun because I'm old.
[LAUGHTER]
Like old in that fun way and fun in that old way.
This is Leaving Coney.
Ahora sí que no me hallo, am barely conscious for this.
The crying has stopped.
I got a few things done, was my niece's packing coach,
bought some boxes for Ma.
After I hugged her at one point, she
said I would age fast because I'm so sentimental.
I told her I stay unemployed, that keeps me young.
The years make you sleepy.
Oh, both things, the tears make you sleepy.
That is the only way I get any rest.
Damn the phantom capitalist hand making this happen.
All the blame on the family is past, at least for moments.
I am not right anywhere, was always
displacement girl, forever from the edge of the sea.
Blood moving now to the outer banks of this island
where our people from the middle of the world are pushed.
It is most home when I am most decentered.
Decentral America, unstable, a sliver.
How do we hold on to the continent?
How do we not fall into the water?