“For I have known them all already,known them all.Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;I know the voices dying with a dying fall,Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?”

“For I have known them all already, known them all—Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

“And I have known the eyes already, known them all—The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?And how should I presume?”

“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.”

“—You have never known a Woman’s body!—I have known the body of my mother, sick and then dying.”

“Real fuckin' close. Too fuckin' close. Ta think I almos' put a bullet between them eyes, and took that life that now I'd die ta save, and I never woulda known what he was in the world, and who he was or could be, and I woulda never even known what I was missin', nor known how right it could feel just ta lay my fingers alongside his.”