There was applause, and she rose from her seat and climbed the steps to the stage, and laid a hand on the man’s sleeve, to thank him, I expect, and perhaps make him feel better about the whole thing. She carried a book and a sheaf of papers, and these she arranged on the podium before she looked up and smiled. “Thank you so much. Thank you and welcome.”

At the sound of her voice, low and calm, I think the whole room exhaled. Even the microphone stopped misbehaving for her. It was a relief and a pleasure to hear her, to be soothed by that slow and measured sound. An unfamiliar frequency, the man had said, although I don’t think he meant it so literally. What I want to say is, her voice was what broke through all my stubborn misunderstandings and finally let me hear.

“I’m going to start with some older poems, and then move on to newer work.” She picked up a book and found the place she wanted, then stopped. “You begin to have these not entirely wholesome relationships with your own work, with different parts of it. There’s the poem that’s always disappointed you, the one that’s always failed to live up to its full promise. And the one you tiptoe around, because you still aren’t sure how you pulled it off, and it has its own life by now, like the Frankenstein monster. Then there are the old friends that you turn to with relief. This first poem is one of those.”

This is what she read. This is what I heard. For the first time, really heard a poem:

BY HEART

I threw a rock into the water of a green pond.

A rock the size of a heart, heavy in the hand,

but dry. Imagine such a heart, unnatural. I said,

“I drowned my heart to put an end to

its thirst.” One more extreme solution that

didn’t help.

The heart of a tree pumps green blood to the

leaf ’s veins. If you cut down the tree

and build a boat to cross the water, the heart floats.

You could say that like you’ve proved something

about hearts. But it’s a trick done with words.

The tree is dead.

I hated my heart, how it made the same fool,

greenhorn mistakes, how it would not be turned into

something not myself.

If my heart could answer the phone, it would give out

personal information to strangers. If it could swim

in tears, it would bring a float toy.

Have you heard of green sickness? A kind of

anemia known as the virgin’s disease, curable by

intercourse. So say the old books.

Though certain complications, like an unsuitable

heart, might ensue. What can you say? You stick a toe in the

water. You take your medicine.

Such weariness. So heavy. Heart is a paper lace word,