Janet Kuypers performed this poem in the live Chicago inauguration of the open mic for the collection book release for "Word Curves" November 9th, 2007 at the Hokin gallery in the south loop. This 11/09/07 show contained 3 poems: "True Happiness in the New Millennium" (which has been read for television; airing 4 times in December 2006 for the Lake County Poets Society 10/03/06 in Waukegan, as well as for the UrbaNation book release 02/22/04 and live at the Spot 09/04/06, "More Than We Should Have" (which has never been read in a show before), and "White Knuckled" (which appears om the CD "Seeing Things Differently", as well as on the DMJ Art Connection CD "Indian Flux" and was in the performance art show and CD release for the 04/01/05 Chicago art gallery show "Contact-Conflict-Control", and it was even performed in the performance art show at the Jesse Oaks Poetry open mic and poetry slam called "UNcorrect"). These poems also appeared with the poems "Content With Inferior Men" and "Too Much Light" in the chapbook called "the Turn of the Word," which was released in print during this show and can be downloaded at janetkuypers.com or scars.tv. A Listing of all of the poems that were read at this feature follows, and for more material from Janet Kuypers, see http://www.janetkuypers.com for audio and writing. Two of the three poems read for the show are listed below: — White Knuckled The hot air was sticking to her skin almost pulling tugging at her very flesh as she walked outside down the stairs from the train station. Just then a breeze hot and sticky hit her in just the wrong way, brushed against her lower neck, and she felt his breath again, not his breath when he raped her, but his stench hot rank when he was just close to her. Her breath quickened, like the catch of her breath when she has just stopped crying. All the emotion is still there not going away. She walks to the bottom of the stairs, railing white-knuckled by her small tender hands, the hands of a child, and that ninety degree breeze suddenly gives her a chill. They say when you get a chill it means a goose walked over your grave. She knows better. She knows that it is him walking, and that he trapped that child in that grave — more than we should have when i think of him i usually think about the drinking actually, i never think of him as drinking come to think of it i just think of him as drunk i can't even remember seeing the drinks in his hand but his perception of the world is always altered but someone reminded me tonight of when he would work outside in the the cold Chicago winters and he would come back with his moustache frozen and there would be little icicles hanging down toward his mouth and then i thought of when i waited with him once at the airport because we were picking up someone and we sat in the shrimp cocktail lounge and he drank, and ate, and i waited and as we left we tried to pay the expressway toll with pennies but some of the coins fell onto the street and we had to throw more change at the machine we paid more than we should have i'm sure we did