In Novem­ber of last year, I was inter­viewed by Marina Yoffe, founder and direc­tor of Jack­son Heights Poetry Fes­ti­val, an orga­ni­za­tion whose advi­sory board I sit on, and I never got around to post­ing a link to the excerpts from the inter­view that JHPF put up on its web­site. There were, I think, bet­ter moments from the inter­view that they could have used, but I like this nonethe­less. Any­way, bet­ter late than never. So here ’tis:

Here is the text of the two poems I read. (If I had a tran­script of the inter­view itself, I would post that too, but I don’t.)

Melissa’s Story

The doc­tor gave instruc­tions like a spy:
Be there, seven pm, on the dot.
If you’re not, I’m gone. Don’t even think about
another appoint­ment. Got it? That day,
of course, there was traf­fic, and the money
had to be in small, old bills. You will get
in my car as if we were lovers. At the spot,
you’ll step out first. Walk when and where I say.
Make a mis­take and I leave. Under­stood?
I did. Some­how it went with­out a snag,
and there I was, legs open on a bed,
with a man crouched between them like a dog.

He reached into me and scraped away the life
I’d almost made, not yet mine to give.

///

The Silence Of Men

A man I’ve never dreamed before walks
into my apart­ment and sits in the green
chair where I do my writ­ing. He car­ries
in his left hand a large erect penis
which he places silently on the floor.
The phal­lus begins to waltz to music
I can­not hear, its scro­tum a skirt;
its tes­ti­cles, legs cut off at the knees.

I want to know why this dis­fig­ured
man­hood has been brought to me. I look up,
but my guest is gone. His organ, deflat­ing
in short spasms like an old man cough­ing,
spreads itself in a pool of shal­low blood.
The silence between us is the silence of men.

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