being a man; a dry, heartless fuck with a dry, heartless heart.
He’s the great dancer, the most beautiful; he had all the women
and all the men; and now he is self-immolating; he is torrential
explosions o f fire, pillars o f flame, miles high; he is a force field
o f heat miles wide. The ground burns under him and anything
he touches is seared. The heat spreads, a fever o f discontent.
The men are fevered, an epidemic o f fury; they are hot but
they can’t burn. H e’s dying in front o f them, torched, and I’m
smashed up on him, whole, arms up and outstretched, on
him, flat up against the flames, indestructible. The whore’s
killing him; she’s a whore and she’s killing you. He can’t stay
away but he tries. He enumerates for me m y lovers. He misses
some but I am discreet. He breaks down because I am not
pregnant yet. I show him m y birth control pills, which he has
never seen; I explain that I w on’t be getting pregnant. He
disappears for a day, two days, then suddenly he is in front o f
me, on his knees, his smile stopping m y heart, he stoops with a
dancer’s swift grace, there is a gift in his hands but his hands
don’t touch mine, he drops the gift and I catch it and he is
gone, I catch it before it hits the ground and when I look up he
is gone, I could have dreamed it but I have the flowers or the
bread or the book or the red-painted Easter egg or the
drawing. H e’s gone and time takes his place, a knife slicing me
into pieces; each second is a long, slow cut. Tim e can slow
down so you can’t outlast it. It can have a minute longer than
your life. Tim e can stand still and you can feel yourself dying
in it but you can’t make it go faster and you can’t die any faster
and if it doesn’t m ove you will never die at all and it w o n ’t
move; you are caved in underground with time collapsed in on
top o f you. T im e’s the cruelest lover yo u ’ll ever have,
merciless and thorough, wrapping itself right around your
heart and choking it and never stopping because time is never
over. Tim e turns your bed into a grave and you can’t breathe
because time pushes down on your heart to kill it. Tim e crawls
with its legs spread out all over you. It’s everywhere, a
noxious poison, it’s vapor and gas and air, it seeps, it spreads,
you can’t run aw ay somewhere so it w o n ’t hurt you, it’s there
before you are, waiting. H e’s gone and he’s left time behind to
punish you; but why? W hy isn’t he here yet; or now ; or now;
or now; and not one second has passed yet. He doesn’t want to
burn; but why? Why should he want less, to be less, to feel
less, to know less; w hy shouldn’t he push him self as far as he
can go; w hy shouldn’t he burn until he dies? I have a certain
ruthless objectivity not uncommon among those who live
inside the senses; I love him without restraint, without limit,
without respect to consequences, for me or for him; I am not
sentimental; I want him; this is not dopey, stupid, sentimental
love; nostalgia and lingering romance; this is it; all; everything. I don’t care about his small stupid social life among stupid, mediocre men— I know him, self-im molating,
torched, in me. His phony friends embarrass him, the men all
around on the streets playing cards and drinking and gossiping, the stupid men who lust for how much he feels, can’t imagine anything other than manipulating tourists into bed so
they can brag or sex transactions for money or the duties o f the
marital bed, the roll-over fuck; and he’s burning, consumed,
dying; so what? H e’d show up suddenly and then he’d be gone
and he never touched me; how could he not touch me? He’d
come in a burst and then he’d disappear and he’d never touch
me and sometimes he brought someone with him so he
couldn’t touch me or be with me or stay near me or come near
me to touch me; how could he not touch me? I went into a
white hot rage, a delirium o f rage; if I’d had his children I
would have sliced their necks open. I used razor blades to cut
delicate lines into my hands; physical pain was easy, a
distraction. Keeping the blade on m y hand, away from my
wrist, took all my concentration, a game o f nerves, a lover’s
game. I made fine lines that turned burgundy from blood the
w ay artists etch lines in glass but the glass doesn’t turn red for
them and the red doesn’t smear and drip. There was a man, I
wanted it to be M but it wasn’t M. He tied me up and hurt me
and on m y back there were marks where he used a whip he had
for animals and I wanted M to see but he didn’t come and he
didn’t see. I would have stayed there strung-up against the
wall m y back cut open forever for him to see but he didn’t see.
Then one day he came in the afternoon and knocked on the
door and politely asked me to have dinner with him that night.
Usually we talked in broken words in broken languages,
messy, tripping over each other. This was a quiet, formal,
aloof invitation with barely any words at all. He came in a car
with a driver. We sat in the back. He was elaborately
courteous. He didn’t say anything. I thought he would explain
things and say why. I sat quietly and waited. He was
unfailingly polite. We ate pinner. He said nothing except do
you like your dinner and would you like more wine and I
nodded whatever he said and m y eyes were open looking right
at him asking him to tell me something that would rescue me,
bring me back to being someone human with a human life.
Then he said he would take me home, form ally, politely, and
at m y door he asked i f he could come in and I said he could
only i f we could talk and he nodded his assent and the driver
waited for him and we went in and he touched me to fuck me,
his hands pushing me down on the bed, and I wanted him dead
and I tried to kill him with m y bare hands for touching me, for
not saying one word to me, for pushing me to fuck me, and I
hit his face with m y fist and I hit his neck and I pushed his neck
so hard I twisted it half around and he was stunned to feel the
pain and he was enraged and he pushed me down to fuck me
and he pinned me down with his hands and shoulders and
chest and legs and he kept fucking me and he said now he was
fucking me the w ay he fucked all whores, yes he went to
brothels and fucked whores, what did I think, that he only
fucked me, no man only fucked one wom an, and I would find
out how much he had loved me before because this was how
he fucked whores and this was how he would fuck me from
now on and it went on forever and I stopped fighting because
m y heart died and I lay still and I didn’t m ove and it still kept
going on and I stared at him and I hated him, I kept m y eyes
open and I stared, and it w asn’t over for a long time but I had
died during it so it didn’t matter when it ended or when he
stopped or when he pulled out o f me finally or when he was
gone from inside me and then it was over and there w
as
numbness close to death throughout me and there was some
man between m y legs. I hadn’t moved and I didn’t move, I
couldn’t m ove, I was on m y back and he had been on top o f me
to fuck me and then he slid down to where his head was
between m y legs and he turned over on his back and he rested
the back o f his head between m y legs where he had fucked me
and he rested there like some sweet, tired baby who had ju st
been born only they put him between m y legs instead o f in m y
arms and he said we would get married now because there was
nothing else left for either o f us; pity the poor lover, it hurt him
too. He was immensely sad and immensely bitter and he said
we would get married now because married people did it like
this and hated each other and felt dead, fucking was like being
dead for them; pity the poor husband, he felt dead. He stayed
between my legs, resting. I didn’t move because there is an
anguish that can stop you from moving and I couldn’t kill him
because there is an anguish that can stop you from killing.
Something awful came, a suffering bigger than my life or your
life or any life or G od ’s life, the crucifixion God; the nails are
hammered in but you don’t get to die. It’s the cross for ladies, a
bed, and you don’t get to die; the lucky boy, the favorite child,
gets to die. Y o u ’ve been mowed down inside, slaughtered
inside, a genocide happened in you, but you don’t get to die.
Y o u ’re not G od ’s son, you’re His daughter, and He leaves you
there nailed because you’re some stupid piece o f shit who
loved someone and you will be there forever, in some bed
somewhere for the rest o f your life and He will make it a long
time, He will make you get old, and He will see to it that you
get fucked, and the skin around where you get fucked will be
calloused and blistered and enraged and there will be someone
climbing on you and getting in you and God your Father will
watch; even when you’re old H e’ll watch. M left at sunrise,
sad boy, poor boy, immensely sad, tired boy, and time was
back on top o f me and I couldn’t move and I waited on the bed
to die but I didn’t die because God hates me; it’s hate. I couldn’t
m ove and I endured all the seconds in the day, every single
second. A second stretches out past hell and when one is over
another comes, longer, worse. It got dark and I dressed
m yself—that night, ten thousand years later, ten million years
later; I dressed m yself and I went to the club and M was
serving drinks and his friend the pied noir was there, the
handsome fascist, the gunrunner for the O. A . S., and this time
he looked at me, now he looked at me, and it was hard to
breathe, and I was transfixed by him; and the noisy room got
quiet with danger and you could feel him and me and you
could see him and me and we couldn’t stop and the fuck we
wanted filled the room even though we didn’t go near each
other and he was absolutely still and completely frightened
because M might kill him or me and I didn’t care but he was
afraid, the great big man was afraid, and I wanted him and I
didn’t care what it cost ju st so I had him, and M said take her, I
give her to you, he shouted, he spit, and I walked out in a rage,
a modern rage that anyone would dare to give me to someone;
me; a free woman. Outside there’s an African wind blow ing
on the island, restless, violent, and there’s perfume in the
wind, a heavy poppy smell, intoxicating, sweet and heavy.
The pied noir is deranged by it and he know s what M did and he
is deranged by that, he wants me with M ’s nasty fuck on me,
fresh like fresh-killed meat. God is the master o f pain and He
made it so you could love someone forever even if someone
cut your heart open. I wait in m y bed, I leave the front door
open. I want the fascist; I want him bad. I am fresh-killed
meat.
S IX
In June 1967
(Age 20)
One night I’m just there, where I live, alone, afraid, the men
have been trying to come in. I’m for using men up as fast as
you can; pulling them, grab, twist, put it here, so they dangle
like twisted dough or you bend them all around like pretzels;
you pull down, the asshole crawls. Y ou need a firm, fast hand,
a steady stare, calm nerve; grab, twist. First, fast; before they
get to throw you down. Y ou surprise them with your stance,
warrior queen, quiet, mean, and once your hands are around
their thing they’re stupid, not tough; still mean but slow and
you can get gone, it takes the edge o ff how mean he’s going to
be. Were you ever so alone as me? It doesn’t matter what they
do to you just so you get them first— it’s your game and you
get money; even if they shit on you it’s your game; as long as
it’s your game you have freedom, you say it’s fun but
whatever you say you’re in charge. Some people think being
poor is the freedom or the game. It’s being the one who says
how and do it to me now; instead o f just waiting until he does
it and he’s gone. Y ou got to be mad at them perpetually and
forever and fierce and you got to know that you got a cunt and
you want true love and real romance, the same. Y ou put your
hand between them and your twat and you got a chance; you
use it like it’s a muscle, sinew and grease, a gun, a knife; you
grab and twist and turn and stare him in the eye, smile, he’s
already losing because you got there first, between his legs; his
thing’s in your fist and your fist is closing on him fast and he’s
got a failure o f nerve for one second, a pause, a gulp, one
second, disarmed, unsure, long enough so he doesn’t know ,
can’t remember, how mean he is; and then you have to take
him into you, o f course, yo u ’ve given your word; there on the
cement or in a shadow or some room; a shadow ’s warm and
dark and consoling and no one can close the door on you and
lock you in; you don’t go with him somewhere unless you got
a feeling for him because you never know what they’ll do; you
go for the edge, a feeling, it’s worth the risk; you learn what
they want, early, easy, it’s not hard, you can ride the energy
they give out or see it in how they m ove or read it o ff their
hips; or you can guide them, there’s never enough blow jo b s
they had to make them tired o f it i f worse comes to worse and
you need to, it will make him stupid and weak but sometimes
he’s mean after because he’s sure yo u ’re dirt, anyone w h o ’s
had him in her mouth is dirt, how do they get by, these guys,
so low and mean. It’s you, him, midnight, cement; viscous
dark, slate gray bed, light falling down from tarnished bulbs
above you; neon somewhere rattling, shaking, static shocks to
your eye, flash, zing, zip, winding words, a long poem in
flickering light; what is neon and how did it get
into the sky at
night? The great gray poet talked it but he didn’t have to do it.
He was a shithead. I’m the real poet o f everyone; the Am erikan
democrat on cement, with everyone; it wears you down,
Walt; I don’t like poetry anymore; it’s semen, you great gray
clod, not some fraternal wave o f democratic j o y . I was born in
1946 down the street from where Walt Whitman lived; the girl
he never wanted, I can face it now; in Cam den, the great gray
city; on great gray cement, broken, bleeding, the girls
squashed down on it, the fuck weighing down on top,
pushing in behind; blood staining the gravel, mine not his;
bullshitter poet, great gray bullshitter; having all the men in
the world, and all the wom en, hard, real, true, it wears you
down, great gray virgin with fantastic dreams, you great gray
fool. I was born in 1946 down the street from where Walt
Whitman lived, in Camden, Andrea, it means manhood or
courage but it was pink pussy anyway wrapped in a pink fuzzy
blanket with big men’s fingers going coochie coochie coo.
Pappa said don’t believe what’s in books but if it was a poem I
believed it; m y first lyric poem was a street, cement, gray,
lined with monuments, broken brick buildings, archaic,
empty vessels, great, bloodstained walls, a winding road to
nowhere, gray, hard, light falling on it from a tarnished moon
so it was silver and brass in the dark and it went out straight
into the gray sky where the moon was, one road o f cement and
silver and night stained red with real blood, you’re down on
your knees and he’s pushing you from inside, G od’s heartbeat
ramming into you and the skin is scraped loose and you bleed
and stain the stone under you. Here’s the poem you got. It’s
your flesh scraped until it’s rubbed o ff and you got a mark, you
got a burn, you got stains o f blood, you got desolation on you.
It’s his mark on you and you’ve got his smell on you and his
bruise inside you; the houses are monuments, brick, broken
brick, red, blood red. There’s a skyline, five floors high, three
floors high, broken brick, chopped o ff brick, empty inside,