The way you are

The way you are, obscure, you wouldn’t know you hurt me. Forgive me for being bitter. It was a little matter. It was a rotten walnut bitter on my teeth. I didn’t look you in the face. What? you would say if I told you this. What are you talking about? Nothing. It goes somewhere in me, into the stomach of my heart, through the mouth of my ear. Whatwever you do, whatever we talk about, whatever you are, it goes somewhere. I feel a dull pressure like hunger. Dry mice and shells of nuts. Like gray rock embedded solidly in me. It doesn’t matter, although it has mattered like a dream. Like hunger. Breathing polluted air, my head grows weak and gray. The same air over and over, the same air.

December 1971