The Work Of The World Is Common

We Lie In Each Other's Arms Eyes Shut And Fingers Open And All The Colors Of The World Pass Through Our Bodies Like Strings Of Fire.

If Sex Is A War, I Am A Conscientious Objector: I Will Not Play.

If I Observe My Cats Carefully, It Is Partly Because I Observe Everyone I Deal With As Carefully As I Can And Partly Because They Amuse And Entertain Me. They Are An Important Part Of The Fabric Of My Daily Life.

I Will Choose What Enters Me, What Becomes Flesh Of My Flesh. Without Choice, No Politics, No Ethics Lives. I Am Not Your Cornfield, Not Your Uranium Mine, Not Your Calf For Fattening, Not Your Cow For Milking. You May Not Use Me As Your Factory. Priests And Legislators Do Not Hold Shares In My Womb Or My Mind. If I Give It To You, I Want It Back. My Life Is A Non-negotiable Demand.

Now That I Am In My Forties, She [my Mother] Tells Me I'm Beautiful; Now That I Am In My Forties, She Sends Me Presents And We Have The Long, Personal And Even Remarkably Honest Phone Calls I Always Wanted So Intensely I Forbade Myself To Imagine Them. How Strange. Perhaps Shaw Was Correct And If We Lived To Be Several Hundred Years Old, We Would Finally Work It All Out. I Am Deeply Grateful. With My Poems, I Finally Won Even My Mother. The Longest Wooing Of My Life.