WEBVTT

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This poem is called
"Neck And Neck."

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And it's a poem that I like
to read at a University,

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because it came out
of conversations

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with students about
unfortunate ambiguities,

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like the kind of ambiguity
that invites a misreading.

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So, anyway, the first line
of the poem is italicized,

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and then ambiguity
presents itself.

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Well, "Neck And Neck."

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Cranes in the sky.

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Sandhill or derrick tower?

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Thomas Derrick was
a gallows architect

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And executioner, 3,000 persons.

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He took up this work

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In lieu of being put to
death himself for rape,

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And eventually he beheaded

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The very Earl
who'd pardoned him.

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"Pardoned" here meaning,
let him live as death.

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Three full strokes
of the heading ax.

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The Earl of Essex

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Had assayed a coup
against Elizabeth,

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Sought, they said,
to depose and slay.

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Sandhills wear a scarlet cap--

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Well, more Venetian
mask or hood--

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From which emerge their
steely amber eyes.

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They mate for life.

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Sometimes their
lives last 37 years.

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I have a pendant necklace.

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Sterling birds
bent beak to beak.

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A heart shaped space
between their arching necks.

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I've never found a photo
of such mawkishness.

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It must be all the jeweler's
vision of true love.

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Still, they are good
birds, unmurderous.

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