WEBVTT

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The last poem I'm going
to read is the title poem

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for the book which will appear
next month called Thousand Year

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Old Fiancee.

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"We are alone, Death's
thousand year old fiancee

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and I. The thing
suggests itself to me.

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I step onto the front
parts of her feet

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and stand like that,
facing her, saying nothing.

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In moments, I lose
20 pounds in sweat.

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My nose bleeds.

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It occurs to me I
may never before

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have acted out of instinct.

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We do not embrace.

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She is in her middle 60s, with
varicose veins, whitish hair,

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and buttocks as large as Russia.

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Things come off of her in waves.

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Merriment, exuberance,
benevolent body lice,

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100-year-old blackheads.

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I kiss her hives.

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I lick her nose that shows
she drinks bottles and bottles

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of Fleischmans every day.

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I am standing there in my Jewish
hair, facing her with my life.

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Knock, knock.

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It is Death in spats and
a blue business suit.

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I stand there in my
Jewish hair facing him.

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He is very still,
grinning, grayish, bemused.

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Pretty soon I begin to scream.

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All night I scream.

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Yeah.

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After a while, I go
under and kiss her ass.

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It takes a bit.

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Fathers and sons, I am up
to my knees in the moon.

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Kiss this ghost, she
says of a certain light.

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I plunged my tongue
into it to the ears.

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Madam, I say, astounded,
choking, feverish, I

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have not as yet had you.

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Have me, she says.

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Under my foreskin, there is
a star, whole constellations.

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Goddammit, I am not
speaking to you here of sex.

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Kiss me here, she says.

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Kiss me there.

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Stars, ghost, and sons.

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Winged, we are all of us winged,
but one thing there is of us.

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Death, you old
lecher, I affirm you.

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I confront you with my balls.

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I revere dead fish
and sunken submarines,

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the little red schoolhouse,
and the American way.

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Let us in fact join
hands with the universe.

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Death, I have news for you.

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I climb into your young
fiancee 11 times a night.

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There are signs that
she is pregnant.

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Death, there is nothing
I will not love."

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Thank you.

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