I can’t remember, I think, I’ve conveniently forgotten what when I was a boy in the schoolyard losing my first fist fight fighting what’s-his-name who was the brother of a girl a grade above me whether it was her, her who my memory sides with my fears against me against my hopes against the possibility never a probability that she’d be mine, whether she was the reason we fought, and whether it was her who furiously beat the back of her brother with her fists yelling “Stop—you Beast—Stop it—Can’t you see—” as I became more useless and more desperate and looking thru the purple of my face bewildered at the hairy arms whose hands were clamped around my neck “—Can’t you see—You’re killing him!”?
2 October 1979