“You, Doctor Martin, walkfrom breakfast to madness. Late August,I speed through the antiseptic tunnelwhere the moving dead still talkof pushing their bones against the thrustof cure. And I am queen of this summer hotelor the laughing bee on a stalkof death. We stand in brokenlines and wait while they unlockthe doors and count us at the frozen gatesof dinner. The shibboleth is spokenand we move to gravy in our smockof smiles. We chew in rows, our platesscratch and whine like chalkin school. There are no knivesfor cutting your throat. I makemoccasins all morning. At first my handskept empty, unraveled for the livesthey used to work. Now I learn to takethem back, each angry finger that demandsI mend what another will breaktomorrow. Of course, I love you;you lean above the plastic sky,god of our block, prince of all the foxes.The breaking crowns are newthat Jack wore. Your third eyemoves among us and lights the separate boxeswhere we sleep or cry.What large children we arehere. All over I grow most tallin the best ward. Your business is people,you call at the madhouse, an oraculareye in our nest. Out in the hallthe intercom pages you. You twist in the pullof the foxy children who falllike floods of life in frost.And we are magic talking to itself,noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sinsforgotten. Am I still lost?Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,counting this row and that row of moccasinswaiting on the silent shelf.”

“And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins forgotten. Am I still lost? Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself”

“Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,Counting this row and that row of moccasinsWaiting on the silent shelf.”

“and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,and I grew, I grew,I wore rubies and bought tomatoesand now, in my middle age,about nineteen in the head I'd say,I am rowing, I am rowingthough the oarlocks stick and are rustyand the sea blinks and rollslike a worried eyebal,but I am rowing, I am rowing,though the wind pushes me backand I know that that island will not be perfect,it will have the flaws of life,the absurdities of the dinner table,but there will be a doorand I will open itand I will get rid of the rat insdie me,the gnawing pestilential rat.God will take it with his two handsand embrace it”

“I'm through with you. Yes, I am going to put you down. From now on, I am my own God. I am going to live by the rules I se for myself. I'll discard everything I was once taught about you. Then I'll be you. I'll be my own God, living my life as I see fit. Not as Mr. Charlie says I should live it, or Mama or anybody else. I shall do as I want in this society that apparently wasn't meant for me and my kind. If you are getting angry because I am talking to you like this, then just kill me, leave me here in this graveyard dead. Maybe thats where all of us belong anyway. Maybe then we wouldn't have to suffer so much. At the rate we are being killed now, we'll all be soon dead anyway.”

“The summer has seized you,as when, last month in Amalfi, I sawlemons as large as your desk-side globe-that miniature map of the world-and I could mention, too,the market stalls of mushroomsand garlic bugs all engorged.Or I even think of the orchard next door,where the berries are doneand the apples are beginning to swell.And once, with our first backyard,I remember I planted an acre of yellow beanswe couldn’t eat.”

“Now I am going back And I have ripped my hand From your hand as I said I would And I have made it this far ...”