“As it has been said:Love and a coughcannot be concealed.Even a small cough.Even a small love.”

“It was as if a morning-glory had bloomed in her throat, and all that blue and small pollen ate into my heart, violent and religious”

“I lay there silently,hoarding my small dignity.I did not ask about the gate or the closet.I did not question the bedtime ritualwhere, on the cold bathroom tiles,I was spread out dailyand examined for flaws.I did not knowthat my bones,those solids, those pieces of sculpturewould not splinter.”

“Keeping The City"Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman guardeth in vain" - John F. Kennedy's unspoken words in Dallas on November 23, 1963.Once,in August,head on your chest,I heard wingsbattering up the place,something inside trying to fly outand I was silentand attentive,the watchman.I was your small public,your small audiencebut it was you that was clapping,it was you untying the snarls and knots,the webs, all bloody and gluey;you with your twelve tongues and twelve wingsbeating, wresting, beating, beatingyour way out of childhood,that airless net that fastened you down.Since then I was more silentthough you had gone miles away,tearing down, rebuilding the fortress.I was therebut could do nothingbut guard the citylest it break.I was silent.I had a strange idea I could overhearbut that your voice, tongue, wingbelonged solely to you.The Lord was silent too.I did not know if he could keep you whole,where I, miles away, yet head on your chest,could do nothing. Not a single thing.The wings of the watchman,if I spoke, would hurt the bird of your soulas he nested, bit, sucked, flapped.I wanted him to fly, burst like a missile from your throat,burst from the spidery-mother-web,burst from Woman herselfwhere too many had laid out lightsthat stuck to you and left a burnthat smarted into your middle age.The cityof my choicethat I guardlike a butterfly, useless, uselessin her yellow costume, swirlingswirling around the gates.The city shifts, falls, rebuilds,and I can do nothing.A watchmanshould be on the alert,but never cocksure.And The Lord -who knows what he keepeth?”

“After Auschwitz"Anger,as black as a hook,overtakes me.Each day,each Nazitook, at 8: 00 A.M., a babyand sauteed him for breakfastin his frying pan.And death looks on with a casual eyeand picks at the dirt under his fingernail.Man is evil,I say aloud.Man is a flowerthat should be burnt,I say aloud.Manis a bird full of mud,I say aloud.And death looks on with a casual eyeand scratches his anus.Man with his small pink toes,with his miraculous fingersis not a templebut an outhouse,I say aloud.Let man never again raise his teacup.Let man never again write a book.Let man never again put on his shoe.Let man never again raise his eyes,on a soft July night.Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.I say those things aloud.I beg the Lord not to hear.”

“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.”

“Sometimes the soul takes pictures of things it has wished for, but never seen.”