“walked erect out of my sleep”

“the lost womenI need to know their namesthose women I would have walked with,jauntily the way men go in groupsswinging their arms, and the onesthose sweating women whom I would have joinedAfter a hard game to chew the fatwhat would we have called each other laughingjoking into our beer? where are my gangs,my teams, my mislaid sisters?all the women who could have known me,where in the world are their names?”

“don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.”

“was my first landscape, red brown as the clay of her georgia.”

“You might as well answer the door, my child,the truth is furiously knocking.”

“and at night my dreams are full of the cursing of me fucking god fucking me.”

“oh antic Godreturn to memy mother in her thirties leaned across the front porch the huge pillow of her breasts pressing against the railsummoning me in for bed.I am almost the dead woman’s age times two.I can barely recall her songthe scent of her handsthough her wild hair scratches my dreams at night. return to me, oh Lord of then and now, my mother’s calling,her young voice humming my name.”