gee i like to think of dead it means nearer because deeper firmer
since darker than little round water at one end of the well   it’s
too cool to be crooked and it’s too firm to be hard but it’s sharp
and thick and it loves,   every old thing falls in rosebugs and
jackknives and kittens and pennies they all sit there looking at
each other having the fastest time because they’ve never met before

dead’s more even than how many ways of sitting on your head your
unnatural hair has in the morning

dead’s clever too like POF goes the alarm off and the little striker
having the best time tickling away everybody’s brain so everybody
just puts out their finger and they stuff the poor thing all full
of fingers

dead has a smile like the nicest man you’ve never met who maybe winks
at you in a streetcar and you pretend you don’t but really you do
see and you are My how glad he winked and hope he’ll do it again

or if it talks about you somewhere behind your back it makes your neck
feel pleasant and stoopid    and if dead says may i have this one and
was never introduced you say Yes because you know you want it to dance
with you and it wants to and it can dance and Whocares

dead’s fine like hands do you see that water flowerpots in windows but
they live higher in their house than you so that’s all you see but you
don’t want to

dead’s happy like the way underclothes All so differently solemn and
inti and sitting on one string

dead never says my dear,Time for your musiclesson and you like music and
to have somebody play who can but you know you never can and why have to?

dead’s nice like a dance where you danced simple hours and you take all
your prickly-clothes off and squeeze-into-largeness without one word  and
you lie still as anything    in largeness and this largeness begins to give
you,the dance all over again and you,feel all again all over the way men
you liked made you feel when they touched you(but that’s not all)because
largeness tells you so you can feel what you made,men feel when,you touched,
them

dead’s sorry like a thistlefluff-thing which goes landing away all by
himself on somebody’s roof or something where who-ever-heard-of-growing
and nobody expects you to anyway

dead says come with me he says(andwhyevernot)into the round well and
see the kitten and the penny and the jackknife and the rosebug
                                                                      and you
say Sure you say    (like that)    sure i’ll come with you you say for i
like kittens i do and jackknives i do and pennies i do and rosebugs i do