It has its own noises, not mine, not all the children who laughed here. It has its own darkness. Light from broken windows doesn’t stop that. Yet I fail to find a place where wind doesn’t blow, where sounds of the street, where sirens don’t call. They call the children, where all the deadness of this place would be rotting, warmly, where I can close my eyes and feel the love. I read the names of children who are now dead written on the walls. All the words that were said here are like light from broken windows: In lightly, it doesn’t warm the place. All the wood is very hard. I write my name on the wall; I spit on the floor.
July 1971