WEBVTT

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It's a new book, so I got to
remember where everything is.

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And then I got to see
if I can read the print.

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I got really into like poets do.

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I got really into Rilke's
"Letters to a Young Poet."

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And it was-- it
was a time when--

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or I have a tendency
in my poem to think

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about systems and control.

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So I started writing these
really intimate letters

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to officials in a previous
presidential administration.

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I actually sent them off.

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And never got any responses.

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"Dear Mr. Chairman of Ethics,
Leadership and Personnel Policy

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in the U.S. Army's Office
of the Deputy Chief of Staff

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for Personnel."

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First, let me explain.

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My mother forbade me to walk
fence rails with the Maleski

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boy.

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She barred me from taking off
my shirt to dig flowerbeds

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with the Holloway girl.

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I kicked an
overturned coffee can

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in the middle of the cul-de-sac.

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Storm after storm blew
past the screen door.

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Standing under the plum
tree's pale pink blossoms

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was putting on a veil.

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In the hard soil
of childhood, God

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was everywhere, in pitted
sycamores, a vibrating clothes

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line, in fireflies hung still as
lanterns from a Japanese maple.

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One day I carved a whole
landscape in the windowsill.

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Sun, willow, car, lady.

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Perhaps there were rabbits.

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My mother grabbed my wrist;
rains broke, livewires writhe

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like eels through our streets.

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How much loneliness
must we inherit?

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So, Sir, I grew
earthbound and cursed,

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a quarry, a construction site.

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God lagged behind in the
pale light of swimming pools

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and pines.

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I took lovers and planes.

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In the desert east
of Palm Springs,

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I drove past windmills
flapping like angels

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trying to redirect traffic.

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Yes, that was me kneeling down

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to take a birth control pill

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by baggage claim area three.

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Of course, Sir, I can
see it clearly now.

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Where once there was a thicket,
I recognized three trees.

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A complicated song, a cardinal's
call, a mother's voice,

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a wedding march.

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I want to undo it.

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Wind brings one bush to

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thrash in panic, while another
remains still as porcelain.

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Promiscuity, like a
season, has its limits.

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Inevitably, rain weaves a sort
of loose net on the window

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screen.

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Any woman of a certain age will
recognize it as cheap lace.

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