A bespectacled artist called Lear
First perfected this smile in a sneer.
He was clever and witty;
He gave life to this ditty –
That original author called Lear.
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Could I unthink you,
what would I do?throw you outwith last night’s garbage,undo my own decisions,my own flesh& commit you to the voidagain?Fortunately,it is not my problem.You hold on, beatinglike a little clock,Swiss in your precision,Japanese in your tenacity,& already havingyour own karma,while I, with my half-hearted maternal urges,my uncertainty that any creatureever really createsanother (unless it beherself) know…
I sit at my desk alone
afternoons when you cameback to me,your arms aching for me,though they smelledof other womenand your sweet head bowedfor me to ruband your heart burstingwith things to tell me,and your hairand your eyeswild.We would embraceon the carpetand leavethe imprint of our bodieson the floor.My back is still sorewhere you pressed meinto the rug,a sweet soreness I…
What is the central passion
To please mummy & daddy?To find a home for their furniture?To found a family of one’s own,possibly a dynasty?To fill the world with more booksthat have no readersor books that have too many& killtoo many trees?What is the passionthat drives usas the wind drivesa winged seed?To reproduce ourselves,then die?To meet God onceif only in a…
On the first night
the primeval sack of oceanbroke,& I gave birth to youlittle woman,little carrot top,little turned-up nose,pushing you out of myselfas my motherpushedme out of herself,as her mother did,& her mother’s mother before her,all of us bornof woman.I am the second daughterof a second daughterof a second daughter,but you shall be the first.You shall see the phrase‘second…
‘Death is our eternal companion,’ Don Juan said with a most serious air. ‘It is always to our left, at an arm’s length . . . It has always been watching you. It always will until the day it taps you.’
My deathlooks exactly like me.She lives to my left,at exactly an arm’s length.She has my face, hair, hands;she agesas I grow older.Sometimes, at night,my death awakens meor else appears in dreamsI did not write.Sometimes a sudden windblows from nowhere,& I look left& see my death.Alive, I writewith my right hand only.When I am dead,I shall…
You call me
I who grew upgnawing on books,as some kidsgnawon bubble gum,who married disastrouslynot oncebut three times,yet have a lovely daughterI would not undofor all the dopein California.Fear was my element,fear my contagion.I swam in ittill I becameimmune.The plane takes off& I laugh aloud.Call me courageous.I am still alive.