I was seventy-seven, come August,
  I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I've experienced zephyr and raw gust
  And (symbolical) flood and simoom.

When you come to this time of abatement,
  To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
  As to what you got out of it all.

So I'll say, though reflection unnerves me
  And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That I think (if my memory serves me)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

In my youth, when the crescent was too wan
  To embarrass with beams from above,
By the aid of some local Don Juan
  I fell into the habit of love.

And I learned how to kiss and be merry--an
  Education left better unsung.
My neglect of the waters Pierian
  Was a scandal, when Grandma was young.

Though the shabby unbalanced the splendid,
  And the bitter outmeasured the sweet,
I should certainly do as I then did,
  Were I given the chance to repeat.

For contrition is hollow and wraithful,
  And regret is no part of my plan,
And I think (if my memory's faithful)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

I was thinking of a son.
The womb is not a clock
nor a bell tolling,
but in the eleventh month of its life
I feel the November
of the body as well as of the calendar.
In two days it will be my birthday
and as always the earth is done with its harvest.
This time I hunt for death,
the night I lean toward,
the night I want.
Well then--
It was in the womb all along.

I was thinking of a son ...
You! The never acquired,
the never seeded or unfastened,
you of the genitals I feared,
the stalk and the puppy's breath.
Will I give you my eyes or his?
Will you be the David or the Susan?
(Those two names I picked and listened for.)
Can you be the man your fathers are--
the leg muscles from Michelangelo,
hands from Yugoslavia
somewhere the peasant, Slavic and determined,
somewhere the survivor bulging with life--
and could it still be possible,
all this with Susan's eyes?

All this without you--
two days gone in blood.
I myself will die without baptism,
a third daughter they didn't bother.
My death will come on my name day.
What's wrong with the name day?
It's only an angel of the sun.
Woman,
weaving a web over your own,
a thin and tangled poison.
Scorpio,
bad spider--
die!

My death from the wrists,
two name tags,
blood worn like a corsage
to bloom
one on the left and one on the right--
It's a warm room,
the place of the blood.
Leave the door open on its hinges!

Two days for your death
and two days until mine.

Love! That red disease--
year after year, David, you would make me wild!
David! Susan! David! David!
full and disheveled, hissing into the night,
never growing old,
waiting always for you on the porch ...
year after year,
my carrot, my cabbage,
I would have possessed you before all women,
calling your name,
calling you mine.

You said the anger would come back
just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not
like. It is a mask I try on.
I migrate toward it and its frog
sits on my lips and defecates.
It is old. It is also a pauper.
I have tried to keep it on a diet.
I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear
like a blood clot. I have
sewn it over my left breast.
I have made a vocation of it.
Lust has taken plant in it
and I have placed you and your
child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous
and the milk tip is brimming
and each machine is working
and I will kiss you when
I cut up one dozen new men
and you will die somewhat,
again and again.

I am tired of **** shaming
Of renaming pleasure as evil
And violence as noble

And sometimes I just want to cry. Not because I'm sad.
But because the universe is so big and there isn't a big enough word to describe it.
And I'm so small and there isn't a small enough word to describe that.
I want to cry but not because I'm lost. I want to cry because there are so many people who are.
I want to shake them and tell them
"we're only here for a second".
You only need one thing, anyway.
One thing to remind you how small you are.
But that one thing has to be what lifts you up, makes you stands taller...reminds you that no matter how small you are in the universe, you are big to someone.  
I want to cry because I've been lost but it's happening. Here. Now.
And there's nothing I can do or say to stop it.
I want to cry for the time I lost when I was lost and there isn't enough time for that.
We're here for a second and I don't want to cry about that.
I want to cry about how many beautifully exquisite things there are to see and I want to shake the hands of the men and women who made it that way.
I know there isn't enough time for that either.
So maybe instead I'll cry tears of joy that the people I see in photographs and on television are part of my team.
That they are small, just like me and they got to see something I may never see.
And that's okay with me.
Because I'll feel things like they don't feel and see things they don't see, too. Because that's the way it works.
We cry and we laugh. We scream and we whisper. We run and then we crawl.  
All because we want to do it all.
I don't want to do it all.

I just want to keep being a part of the team.

My primary love is 
to go well with you
My secondary love is
to grow well with others

Kiss me until we form a universe in our mouths.