 Thank you. I'm very glad to be here Thank you all for persevering all the way to district 11 And thank you Jack and friends of the library I'm gonna read a poem that I wrote a couple of years ago when my father was dying And I felt like the whole world needed to stop and let me deal with that And it didn't this poem is called after the diagnosis So it turns out one day is not so different from the last Cala lilies turn brown at the edges Milk sours in the sink Snails suck holes out of strawberries in the garden Dusk colors the city streets with its Auburn melancholy Yesterday the man in the apartment on the corner plan to live forever Today he is dying. Oh Not like we are all dying inch by inch Dealing out loose change on lattes and other people's pain Hamstrung and grocery lines with carts full of organic hot dogs and hormone-free milk Counting back the morning as we watched the old woman in front fumble with her checkbook In the apartment. He is dying by miles eyes stripped to bear breath short and shorter Blue feet and purple hands with broken strands of music in his ears Still there is laundry to be folded and potatoes to be mashed With his daughter the man gathers words like cockleshells Lashes stories together into a raft They draw the evening out and out No matter Tomorrow comes crashing through the door without permission