By Button Poetry
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Michael Lee, performing at his book release party at Icehouse in Minneapolis, MN.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:02
And what does it mean when you and your love sleep
00:07
in the same bed for the last time
00:10
and you lie awake saying nothing because you know it?
00:15
And maybe if you never sleep, you will never wake,
00:20
and the birds won’t sing,
00:22
and the sun won’t know to rise, and you won’t ever be alone again.
00:29
And what does it mean when you can feel her body
00:32
only a foot from your own
00:34
but you are certain, if you reached out for her arm or cheek,
00:38
you would not find anything other than the sheets still warm,
00:42
and no matter how close she gets to you now,
00:45
she will always be out of reach?
00:47
And what does it mean when finally you fall asleep
00:51
and both awaken to a gunshot in the dark,
00:54
like a single string in the instrument of night had snapped,
00:58
and she crawls into your arms for protection,
01:01
but of course not the real kind,
01:04
because that bullet, if aimed at you, would’ve gone through you both?
01:09
And what does it mean when you realize that’s all love is,
01:13
a small and feeble shelter from the inevitable,
01:16
from bullets and time, from rain and also drought?
01:20
And if the bullet were just a tool of grammar
01:22
in the language of the unspeakable,
01:24
would it not be a conjunction?
01:27
Would it not be the word “and”?
01:29
For doesn’t it connect us to the only two worlds we know?
01:35
(applause)
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
The post Michael Lee – ‘And’ appeared first on The Good Men Project.