the apartment is falling to ruin
sandpaper, linseed oil, ammonia
I'm in terrible trouble about Tom
and nobody knows it
this is the way I am now
maybe someday it will be otherwise
and I will not like to think of this time
when I sat planning my spiders and my pleasure
arranging things, fixing things
knowing something is left out
myself as I was
neither woman nor child, and strong
neither the outline of a person, nor its ghost
and courageous, and glad as hell
to make a poem
you have to bore a hole
through the chest wall
to attack yourself
your conditions, your sleep
as though you were your mortal enemy
whom you had met at last on a lonely road
on a night when the stars froze your heart