I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--


A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a !#@$ lampshade,

My right foot

A paperweight,

My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.


Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--


The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be
At home on me


And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.


This is Number Three.
What a trash

To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.

The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see


Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies,


These are my hands
My knees.

I may be skin and bone

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.

The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.


The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut


As a seashell.
They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying

Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.


I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.


It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.

It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:


'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge


For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.


And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.

So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,

The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.


Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,

A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.


Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

23-29 October 1962