“All the untidy activity continues,awful but cheerful.”

“all my life i have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something.”

“Close, close all nightthe lovers keep.They turn togetherin their sleep,Close as two pagesin a bookthat read each otherin the dark.Each knows allthe other knows,learned by heartfrom head to toes.”

“But he sleeps on the top of his mastwith his eyes closed tight.The gull inquired into his dream,which was, "I must not fall.The spangled sea below wants me to fall.It is hard as diamonds; it wants to destroy us all.”

“Filling StationOh, but it is dirty!--this little filling station,oil-soaked, oil-permeatedto a disturbing, over-allblack translucency.Be careful with that match!Father wears a dirty,oil-soaked monkey suitthat cuts him under the arms,and several quick and saucyand greasy sons assist him(it's a family filling station),all quite thoroughly dirty.Do they live in the station?It has a cement porchbehind the pumps, and on ita set of crushed and grease-impregnated wickerwork;on the wicker sofaa dirty dog, quite comfy.Some comic books providethe only note of color--of certain color. They lieupon a big dim doilydraping a taboret(part of the set), besidea big hirsute begonia.Why the extraneous plant?Why the taboret?Why, oh why, the doily?(Embroidered in daisy stitchwith marguerites, I think,and heavy with gray crochet.)Somebody embroidered the doily.Somebody waters the plant,or oils it, maybe. Somebodyarranges the rows of cansso that they softly say:ESSO--SO--SO--SOto high-strung automobiles.Somebody loves us all.”

“The moon in the bureau mirrorlooks out a million miles(and perhaps with pride, at herself,but she never, never smiles)far and away beyond sleep, orperhaps she's a daytime sleeper.By the Universe deserted,she'd tell it to go to hell,and she'd find a body of water,or a mirror, on which to dwell.So wrap up care in a cobweband drop it down the wellinto that world invertedwhere left is always right,where the shadows are really the body,where we stay awake all night,where the heavens are shallow as the seais now deep, and you love me.”

“I leave a lovely opalescent ribbon: I know this.”