reached fifteen with desire to be free
love of momma turned to love for T-B

consume me
cold lover
with your hot grip

I’ll cough and wheeze
lie back and waste away

to nothing

I’ll go easy just please
take me with you

got to be free



May 7, 1981
bio-fragments

Back

I.


the women

sick of these women
all of them

first the mother

mother
smother

death in the womb

then grandmother
kissed-worshipped in her flowery coffin
and her eternal death-grip
on her son my father
(he no talk)

then foster-grandmother
foster-sister cousins foster-
Godsisters and aunts with
big wet sloppy kisses

and the little girl I
messed with
me only four
she three-and-a-half

and her father
the only man
and I would gladly have been
through with men forever

yelling at me
like death was next

he found out
(but how?)

I ran ran ran
instinct to momma
she was nice
no little girls, she said

obedience
born of hopeless devotion
I believed I had
no little girls

only Sheila
and Cecelia
June and Edwina and Diane

little girlfriends

and no boyfriends
(that is to say: no
friends who were boys)

no, not really

oh, there was the fellow who
kissed me big wet sloppy hateful
aunty-kisses

I hate it I hate it
and these women saying
he loves you it’s all right

I hate it I hate it

but momma
always momma

had to climb in her lap
to kiss her like I wanted

mommy I love you I love you
kissing her face her neck her arms

I love you I love you
little hands on big warm ears
kissing her nose her cheeks oh
God it’s not dead she still
owns me

imprisoned by my nine-year-old passion

II.




the way it is

Contents: Headings

Contents: Poems

Index by Titles

Index by First Lines

Chronology

Preface

Cover Page