I could act it all out of me for you if you want me to do it. Something that happened. Inward my head runs thick circles. I am writing a letter though I am tired and though it is late. The stone slid off the road. A mud turtle melts, night in waxing moon light. Here’s for you and me. It plods my voice, looking for the water, water letter a circle, as though the mud were thick. It will resume. I don’t ask, just put it somewhere else. Wooden. Nerves of wood. It bumps into the thought, a word. Inward, he said, where is the turtle. God damn it. Where did the turtle go. The turtle sank the stone somewhere. The turtle ate the stone. It failed to swallow the moon. It was a mistake. There must be some other circle somewhere. Maybe he should decide, the mud, what is the mud. But the letter is going on He won’t find it, whatever mark. He would ask. He knows about a dull ache at the rear of his brain. He was something else I forgot. Maybe he was a friend. Maybe he was an object, or something about a question, whatever. I don’t know. It bumps the turtle. The turtle is annoyed at this. Can’t sleep blamed the water. Darkness like mud, made me do it. But not on the floor, he said. I would sleep. It wanders. The stone will be the end.
November 1971