WEBVTT

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This is a similar kind of poem.

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I spent a weekend in a
condo in North Carolina.

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And I was on the seventh
floor of the building.

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There was a hot tub
outside the room.

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All night, you would hear
the jets of gas flame firing

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up to heat the water, to keep
it at a perfect 102 degrees

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for that moment of whim,
when the people staying

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in the apartment might want to
immerse their bodies for five

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minutes.

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The water is kept 24 hours
a day at that temperature.

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It wouldn't have been a problem
if it hadn't been so loud.

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You know, the noise
of those jets firing

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on, it kept reminding you of
how wasteful you were being.

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Really interfered
with your pleasure.

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And that's what this is about.

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It's called "From This Height."

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Cold wind comes out
of the white hills

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and rubs itself against the
walls of the condominium

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with an esophageal vowel sound.

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And the loneliness creeps
into the conversation

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by the hot tub.

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We don't deserve pleasure,
just as we don't deserve pain.

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But it's pure sorcery the
way the feathers of warm mist

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keep rising from the
surface of the water

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to wrap themselves around a
sculpted clavicle or wrist.

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It's not just that we
are on the eighth story

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of the world looking out
through glass and steel

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with a clarity of
vision, in which

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imported coffee and the
knowledge of French painting

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are combined, but
that we are on top

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of a pyramid of all the facts
that make this possible.

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The furnace that heats
the water, the truck that

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hauled the fuel, the
artery of highway

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blasted through the
mountains, the heart attack

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of the previous owner, the
history of Western medicine

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which failed to save him.

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The successful development
of tourism and Snow White

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lotions, which counteract
the chemistry of chlorine

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upon skin--

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our skin.

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Down inside history's
body, the slaves

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are still singing in the dark.

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The roads continue to be
built. The wind blows.

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And the building grips
itself in anticipation

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of the next strong gust.

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So an enormous act of
forgetting is required simply

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to kiss someone or
to open your mouth

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for the fork of
high-calorie pate someone

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is raising to your lips,
which, considering the price,

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would be a sin not to enjoy.

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Thank you.

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