A Fierce Brief Fusion Which Dreamers Call

I Began To Think Vodka Was My Drink At Last. It Didn’t Taste Like Anything, But It Went Straight Down Into My Stomach Like A Sword Swallowers’ Sword And Made Me Feel Powerful And Godlike.

The Sky Leans On Me, Me, The One Upright Among All Horizontals.

When I Was Nineteen, Pureness Was The Great Issue. Instead Of The World Being Divided Up Into Catholics And Protestants Or Republicans And Democrats Or White Men And Black Men Or Even Men And Women, I Saw The World Divided Into People Who Had Slept With Somebody And People Who Hadn’t, And This Seemed The Only Really Significant Difference Between One Person And Another.

I Shut My Eyes And All The World Drops Dead; I Lift My Eyes And All Is Born Again.

And I A Smiling Woman. I Am Only Thirty. And Like The Cat I Have Nine Times To Die.