My name is Nicole Sealey and I'll be reading a poem by John Murillo called "Distant Lover (Or, When You're Teaching in Amherst and, While on a Late Night Walk, Your Wife Calls from Brooklyn to Say Goodnight)".  I selected this poem because I think it's in conversation with object permanence.  Two love poems by two lovers.  That's why.

The dead of February, and everything sexual.
So sexual the icicles skirting the barn.
Sexual the animals huddled inside, shivering.
Sexual the cloud disappearing, appearing
again, from your half-open mouth.  The moon
swollen bright.  Sexual the trees, stark
naked, all their branches spread and undulating 
in the wind.  Sexual the tundra.  Sexual
the blackest snow by the road, made blacker
by the city worker's plow.  Sexual, the snowman
leaning in a midnight yard.  So sexual
dead February, the small town windows lit
from inside, fogging, watching you burn.