As A Writer One Has To Take

I Sit At My Desk Each Night With No Place To Go, Opening The Wrinkled Maps Of Milwaukee And Buffalo, The Whole U.s., Its Cemeteries, Its Arbitrary Time Zones, Through Routes Like Small Veins, Capitals Like Small Stones.

My Ideas Are A Curse. They Spring From A Radical Discontent With The Awful Order Of Things. I Play Clown. I Play Carpenter. I Play Nurse. I Play Witch.

Someone Is Dead. Even The Trees Know It, Those Poor Old Dancers Who Come On Lewdly, All Pea-green Scarfs And Spine Pole.

I Lay There Silently, Hoarding My Small Dignity. I Did Not Ask About The Gate Or The Closet. I Did Not Question The Bedtime Ritual Where, On The Cold Bathroom Tiles, I Was Spread Out Daily And Examined For Flaws. I Did Not Know That My Bones, Those Solids, Those Pieces Of Sculpture Would Not Splinter.

As A Writer One Has To Take The Chance On Being A Fool.