Don't know why, but I'm feeling so sad
I long to try something I've never had.

After all the fears, the warnings
After all
A woman's mistakes are different from a girl's
They are written by fire on stone
They are a trait and not an error. . .

I've lived to bury my desires,
And see my dreams corrode with rust;
Now all that's left are fruitless fires
That burn my empty heart to dust.

It's easy, perhaps to die for a dream
With banners unfurled - and be forgiving!
It's the hardest part to follow the gleam
When scorned by the world - and go on living!

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.
Now that I am without you, all is so desolate;
And all that once was so beautiful is dead.

Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art;
But some tell their days by the flow of their tears
And their lives by the moans of their hearts.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrop are waiting for thee.

Thankgoodness for all of the things you are not!
Thankgoodness you're not something that someone forgot.
And left all alone in some punkerish place
Like a rusty tin coat hanger hanging in space.

I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does.

If people ask me,
I always tell them:
"Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say."
If people ask me,
I always answer,
I always tell them,
If they ask me
Politely. . .
BUT SOMETIMES
I wish
that they wouldn't

Out beyond
ideas of
right thinking
or wrong thinking
is a field.
I'll meet you there.

We are left open and wet like shells young
girls string on strips of kelp and wear
around their necks and wrists and ankles into
the sea. In the washed-over sand, we
have to imagine our names were there, in
silver, your name like a rabbit, like
your feet, that turn away from me after
dark nights soften our bodies, turn
them into deep pools of water, fresh water
cupped in our hands on these hot beaches,
the sun which hardens us, our hair
like field straw, but it is our soft grass,
we nest in it and each other. And our hands
keep building, like a stonemason sleeping: his
buildings he has never been in want his hands
again. It is you I want again, left open.
Now somewhere else, out of reach of my brown feet,
my shell that has escaped into love, my name.
And you are here, now with pearls in your
hair, and I want to dive to find you
and carry your pearls up to air between
my lips. And to hear you breathe in
as if you were breathing for the world
and will never stop. I sleep on a dune
as if an animal waiting to carry me down
these beaches to you. And I cannot think of
a letter that is not in your name. And I cannot
think of your arms without my own wet and
stretching out. And I cannot dream of your eyes,
without them, right now, looking closely into mine.

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam-
ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! - and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the
watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator
and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed
the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my
Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
cans following you, and followed in my imagination
by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in
our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every
frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love,
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent
cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?