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22 At a Poetry Reading Late Saturday Afternoon Tired from a long week of caring for others, working, worrying, walking dogs, feeding mice, cleaning traps, harvesting crops, flying planes over deserts, milking cows— you name it, I’m tired from doing it, the sky is cloudy, it’s warm inside this quiet room, strangers listening to poems roll out, one after another, lyrical, lovely, sitting straight in my hard back chair, my head drops to my chest then snaps backward, mouth open like my grandfather’s at Radio City. I was seven when he’d take me to see the Rockettes, “look at those legs,” he’d say, then his head would fall, him snoring, me mesmerized by the line of dancers glittering across the stage, one long leg lifting after another. Now in this silent room, the poet reads her best words, best order, and I’m seven again when the tonsil doctor put the mask over my mouth, “count backwards,” he said, his fist opening, the foam bunnies jumping out of his hand, and I was out. Was it the ether or the whispers of my mother and aunt that lulled me into a sleep my bones can still remember? It’s so warm in here, so cloudy outside, and the mice will soon be hungry. ...

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