In her own words...


"Talk"

2009


The speaker was an actor, not hired to act
but to enliven topics.
With his velvet smile and shock of pale hair
he was easy to watch

as we waited to hear what he would tell us
about ecstasy (physical),
our favorite subject, one that needed light
from a reliable source.

So we waited while he thanked his sponsors
who were also waiting,
though not for the same enlightenment,
their being sponsors

and so detached they even laughed at the
long, tangential story
he opened with while we waited some more. 
The talk lasted an hour.

Outside, cold air dispersed actor, sponsors,
us; all but curiosity, hot, intact.

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About this work


“Talk” was first published in The Yale Review, Vol. 97, no. 1 (January 2009), p. 81.  It is also included in Dorothea Tanning's book, Coming to That: Poems, New York: Graywolf Press, 2011, p. 20, and may not be reprinted without the publisher's permission.