Next birthday I am thirty-six, & formed (for all intents & purposes) in tooth & claw.

I hear you will not fall in love w… because I come without a guarantee… because someday I may depart at wh… and leave you desolate, abandoned,… If that’s the case, what use to be…

And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. —William Blake Because I would not admit that I had nurtured

In the glass-bottomed boat of our lives, we putter along gazing at the other world under the sea– that world of flickering

Is God the one who eats the meat off the bones of dead people? —Molly Miranda Jong—Fast, age 3… God is the one, Molly,

A delicate border. A nonexistent… The train obligingly dissolves in… The G.I. next to me is talking wa… I don’t ‘know the Asian mind,’ he… Moving through old arguments.

People wish to be settled. Onl… —Thoreau My life has been the instrument for a mouth

I began by loving women & the love turned to bitterness. My mother, the bitter, whose bitter lesson–

At dusk Demeter becomes afraid for baby Persephone lost in that hell which she herself created

"...a frozen memory, like any p… where nothing is missing, not even… and especially, nothingness..."… —Julio Cortázar, “Blow Up” Mirror-mad,

(a flip through BRIDE’s) The silver spoons were warbling their absurd musical names when, drawing back

You operate on the afternoon You perform open heart surgery on the ghosts of your suicidal friends You divorce your parents

I am in love with my womb & jealous of it. I cover it tenderly with a little pink hat (a sort of yarmulke)