“‎"she’ mad but she’magic. there’ no lie in her fire.”

“I see you drinking at a fountain with tinyblue hands, no, your hands are not tinythey are small, and the fountain is in Francewhere you wrote me that last letter andI answered and never heard from you again.you used to write insane poems aboutANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and youknew famous artists and most of themwere your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealousbecause we’ never met. we got close once inNew Orleans, one half block, but never met, nevertouched. so you went with the famous and wroteabout the famous, and, of course, what you found outis that the famous are worried abouttheir fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bedwith them, who gives them that, and then awakensin the morning to write upper case poems aboutANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ toldus, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybeit was the upper case. you were one of thebest female poets and I told the publishers, editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved youlike a man loves a woman he never touches, onlywrites to, keeps little photographs of. I would haveloved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling acigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, alllovers betray. it didn’ help. you saidyou had a crying bench and it was by a bridge andthe bridge was over a river and you sat on the cryingbench every night and wept for the lovers who hadhurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but neverheard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met youI would probably have been unfair to you or youto me. it was best like this.”

“she’s mad, but she’s magic.”

“I’ve come by, she says, to tell youthat this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s over. this is it.I sit on the couch watching her arrangeher long red hair before my bedroommirror.She pulls her hair up andpiles it on top of her head-she lets her eyes look atmy eyes-then she drops her hair andlets it fall down in front of her face.We go to bed and I hold herspeechlessly from the backmy arm around her neckI touch her wrists and her handsfeel up to her elbowsno further.”

“She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn't have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.”

“jan was an excellent fuck...she had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that was killing her.”

“The whole scene was indecent, mad. It smacked of murder and assassination.”