Obscurity and the Amateur (audio only)
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Recorded at the Chancellors Reading, Poets Forum 2015. NYU Skirball Center. New York City.
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Personals
Some nights I sleep with my dress on. My teeth are small and even. I don't get headaches. Since 1971 or before, I have hunted a bench where I could eat my pimento cheese in peace. If this were Tennessee and across that river, Arkansas, I'd meet you in West Memphis tonight. We could have a big time. Danger, shoulder soft. Do not lie or lean on me. I'm still trying to find a job for which a simple machine isn't better suited. I've seen people die of money. Look at Admiral Benbow.
2002
What Keeps
We live on a hillside
close to water
We eat in darkness
We sleep in the coldest
part of the house
We love in silence
We keep our poetry
locked in a glass cabinet
Some nights We stay up
passing it back and
forth
between us
drinking deep
2025
Tours
A girl on the stairs listens to her father Beat up her mother. Doors bang. She comes down in her nightgown. The piano stands there in the dark Like a boy with an orchid. She plays what she can Then she turns the lamp on. Her mother's music is spread out On the floor like brochures. She hears her father Running through the leaves. The last black key She presses stays down, makes no sound Someone putting their tongue where their tooth had been.
1982