the muscles don’t stretch, at some point the muscles tear, and
it must be spectacular, when they rip; then he’d come; then
he’d run. Y ou couldn’t push a baby through, like with the
vagina; though they’d probably think it’d be good for a laugh;
have some slasher do a cesarean; like with this Lovelace girl,
where they made a jo k e with her, as if the clit is in her throat
and they keep pushing penises in to find it so she can have an
orgasm; it’s for her, o f course; always for her; a joke; but a
friendly one; for her; so she can have a good time; I went in,
and I saw them ram it down; big men; banging; you know,
mean shoving; I don’t know w hy she ain’t dead. They kept her
smiling; i f it’s a film you have to smile; I wanted to see if it
hurt, like with me; she smiled; but with film they edit, you
know, like in H ollyw ood. She had black and blue marks all
over her legs and her thighs, big ones, and she smiled; I don’t
know w hy we always smile; I m yself smile; I can remember
smiling, like the smile on a skeleton; you don’t ever want them
to think they did nothing wrong so you smile or you don’t
want them to think there’s something w rong with you so you
smile, because there’s likely to be some kind o f pain coming
after you if there’s something w rong with you, they hit you to
make it right, or you want them to be pleased so you smile or
you want them to leave so you smile or you just are crapping
in your pants afraid so you smile and even after you shit from
fear you keep smiling; they film it, you smile. Sometimes a
man still offers me money, I laugh, a hoarse, ugly laugh, quite
mad, m y throat’s in ribbons, just hanging streaks o f meat, you
can feel it all loose, all cut loose or ripped loose in pieces as if
it’s kind o f like pieces o f steak cut to be sauteed but someone
forgot and left it out so there’s maggots on it and it’s green,
rotted out, all crawling. Some one o f them offers me money
and I make him sorry, I prefer the garbage in the trash cans,
frankly, it’s cleaner, this walking human stuff I don’t have no
room in m y heart for, they’re not hygenic. I’m old, pretty old,
I can’t take the chance o f getting cancer or something from
them; I think they give it to you with how they look at you; so
I hide the best I can, under newspapers or under coats or under
trash I pick up; m y hair’s silver, dirty; I remember when I was
different and these legs were silk; and m y breasts were silk; but
now there’s sores; and blood; and scars; and I’m green inside
sometimes, if I cut m yself something green comes out, as if
I’m getting green blood which I never heard o f before but they
keep things from you; it could be that if you get so many bad
cuts body and soul your blood changes; from scarlet to a dank
green, an awful green; some chartreuse, some Irish, but
mostly it is morbid, a rotting green; it’s a sad story as I am an
old-fashioned human being who had a few dreams; I liked
books and I would have enjoyed a cup o f coffee with Camus in
m y younger days, at a cafe in Paris, outside, w e’d watch the
people walk by, and I would have explained that his ideas
about suicide were in some sense naive, ahistorical, that no
philosopher could afford to ignore incest, or, as I would have
it, the story o f man, and remain credible; I wanted a pretty
whisper, by which I mean a lover’s whisper, by which I mean
that I could say sweet things in a man’s ear and he’d be thrilled
and kind, I’d whisper and it’d be like making love, an embrace
that would chill his blood and boil it, his skin’d be wild, all
nerves, all smitten, it’d be my mark on him, a gentle mark but
no one’d match it, just one whisper, the kind that makes you
shiver body and soul, and it’d just brush over his ear. I wanted
hips you could balance the weight o f the world on, and I’d
shake and it’d move; in Tanzania it’d rumble. I wanted some
words; o f beauty; o f power; o f truth; simple words; ones you
could write down; to say some things that happened, in a
them up, or I wasn’t smart enough to find them, or the parts o f
them I had or I found got tangled up, because I couldn’t
remember, a lot disappeared, you’d figure it would be
impressed on you if it was bad enough or hard enough but if
there’s nothing but fire it’s hard to remember some particular
flame on some particular day; and I lived in fire, the element; a
Dresden, metaphysically speaking; a condition; a circum-
stance; in time, tangential to space; I stepped out, into fire. Fire
burns m em ory clean; or the heart; it burns the heart clean; or
there’s scorched earth, a dead geography, burned bare; I
stepped out, into fire, or its aftermath; burnt earth; a dry, hard
place. I was born in blood and I stepped out, into fire; and I
burned; a girl, burning; the flesh becomes translucent and the
bones show through the fire. The cement was hot, as if flames
grew in it, trees o f fire; it was hot where they threw you down;
hot and orange; how am I supposed to remember which flame,
on which day, or what his name was, or how he did it, or what
he said, or w hy, if I ever knew; I don’t remember knowing.
O r even if, at some point; really, even if. I lived in urban flame.
There was the flat earth, for us gray, hard, cement; and it
burned. I saw pictures o f woods in books; we had great flames
stretching up into the sky and swaying; m oving; dancing; the
heat melting the air; we had burning hearts and arid hearts;
girls’ bodies, burning; boys, hot, chasing us through the forest
o f flame, pushing us down; and we burned. Then there were
surreal flames, the ones we superimposed on reality, the
atomic flames on the way, coming soon, at a theater near you,
the dread fire that could never be put out once it was ignited; I
saw it, simple, in front o f m y eyes, there never was a chance, I
lived in the flames and the flames were a ghostly wash o f
orange and red, as i f an eternal fire mixed with blood were the
paint, and a great storm the brush. I lived in the ordinary fire,
whatever made them follow you and push you down, yo u ’d
feel the heat, searing, you didn’t need to see the flame, it was
more as if he had orange and burning hands a mile high; I
burned; the skin peeled off; it deformed you. The fire boils
you; you melt and blister; then I’d try to write it down, the
flames leaping o ff the cement, the embodiment o f the lover;
but I didn’t know what to call it; and it hurt; but past what they
will let you say; any o f them. I didn’t know what to call it, I
couldn’t find the words; and there were always adults saying
no, there is no fire, and no, there are no flames; and asking the
life-or-death question, you’re still a virgin, aren’t you; which
you would be forever, poor fool, in your pitiful pure heart.
Y ou couldn�
�t tell them about the flames that were lit on your
back by vandal lover boys, arsonists, while they held you
down; and there were other flames; the adults said not to
watch; but I watched; and the flames stayed with me, burning
in m y brain, a fire there, forever, I lived with the flames my
whole life; the Buddhist monks in Vietnam who burned
themselves alive; they set themselves on fire; to protest; they
were calm; they sat themselves down, calm; they were simple,
plain; they never showed any fear or hesitation; they were
solemn; they said a prayer; they had kerosene; then they were
lit; then they exploded; into flame; and they burned forever; in
my heart; forever; past what television could show; in its gray;
in its black and white and gray; the gray cement o f gray
Saigon; the gray robes o f a gray man, a Buddhist; the gray fire,
consuming him; I don’t need to close my eyes to see them; I
could reach out to touch them, without even closing my eyes;
the television went off, or the adults turned it off, but you
knew they were still burning, now, later, hours, days, the
happened it has happened; it has happened always and forever.
The gray fire would die down and the gray monk would be
charred and skeletal, dead, they’d remove him like so much
garbage, but the fire’d stay, low along the ground, the gray
fire would spread, low along the ground, in gray Saigon; in
gray Camden. The flames would stay low and gray and they
would burn; an eternal fire; its meaning entrusted to a child for
keeping. I think they stayed calm inside the fire; burning; I
think they stayed quiet; I mourned them; I grieved for them; I
felt some shadow o f the pain; maybe there was no calm;
maybe they shrieked; maybe it was an agony obscene even to
God; imagine. I’d go to school on just some regular day and
it’d happen; at night, on the news, they’d show it; the gray
picture; a Buddhist in flames; because he didn’t like the
government in Vietnam; because the United States was
hurting Vietnam; we tormented them. Y o u ’d see a plain street
in Saigon and suddenly a figure would ignite; a quiet, calm
figure, simple, in simple robes, rags almost; a plain, simple
man. It was a protest, a chosen immolation, a decision,
planned for; he burned him self to say there were no words; to
tell me there were no words; he wanted me to know that in
Vietnam there was an agony against which this agony, self-
immolation, was nothing, meaningless, minor; he wanted me
to know; and I know; he wanted me to remember; and I
remember. He wanted the flames to reach me; he wanted the
heat to graze me; he wanted this self-immolation, a pain past
words, to communicate: you devastate us here, a pain past
words. The Buddhists didn’t want to fight or to hurt someone
else; so they killed themselves; in w ays unbearable to watch; to
say that this was some small part o f the pain we caused, some
small measure o f the pain we made; an anguish to communicate anguish. Years later I was grow n, or nearly so, and there was Norm an M orrison, some man, a regular man, ordinary,
and he walked to the front o f the White House, as close as he
could get, a normal looking citizen, and he poured gasoline all
over him self and he lit it and the police couldn’t stop him or get
near him, he was a pillar o f fire, and he died, slow, in fire,
because the war was w rong and words weren’t helping, and he
said we have to show them so he showed them; he said this is
the anguish I will undergo to show you the anguish there,
there are no words, I can show you but I can’t tell you because
no words get through to you, yo u ’ve got a barricade against
feeling and I have to burn it down. I grew up, a stepdaughter
o f brazen protest, immense protest; each time I measured m y
ow n resistance against the burning man; I felt the anguish o f
Vietnam; sometimes the War couldn’t get out o f m y mind and
there was nothing between me and it; I felt it pure, the pain o f
them over there, how wronged they were; you see, we were
tormenting them. In the end it’s always simple; we were
tormenting them. Others cared too; as much as I did; we were
mad to stop it; the crime, as we called it; it was a crime.
Sometimes ordinary life was a buffer; you thought about
orangejuice or something; and then there’d be no buffer; there
was ju st the crime. The big protests were easy and lazy up
against Norm an Morrison and the Buddhist monks; I remember them, as a standard; suppose you really care; suppose the
truth o f it sits on your mind plain and bare; suppose you don’t
got no more lies between you and it; if a crime was big enough
and mean enough to hurt your heart you had to burn your
heart clean; I don’t remember being afraid to die; it just wasn’t
m y turn yet; it’s got your name on it, your turn, when it’s
right; you can see it writ in fire, private flames; and it calls, you
can hear it when you get up close; you see it and it’s yours.
There’s this Lovelace creature, they’re pissing on her or she’s
doing the pissing, you know how they have girls spread out in
the pictures outside the movies, one’s on her back and the
urine’s coming on her and the other’s standing, legs spread,
and she’s fingering her crotch and the urine’s coming from
her, as i f she’s ejaculating it, and the urine’s colored a bright
yellow as if someone poured yellow dye in it; and they’re
smiling; they’re both smiling; it’s girls touching each other, as
i f girls would do so, laughing, and she’s being peed on, one o f
them; and there’s her throat, thrown back, bared, he’s down
to the bottom, as far as he can go; i f he were bigger he’d be in
deeper; and she’s timid, shy, eager, laughing, grateful;
laughing and grateful; and moaning; you know, the porn
moan; nothing resembling human life; these stupid fake
noises, clown stuff, a sex circus o f sex clowns; he’s a freak, a
sinister freak; a monstrous asshole if not for how he subjugates
her, the smiling ninny down on her knees and after saying
thank you, as girls were born for, so they say. There’s this
Lovelace girl on the marquee; and even the junkies are
laughing, they think it’s so swell; and I think who is she,
w here’s she from, who hurt her, who hurt her to put her here;
because there’s a camera; because in all my life there never was
a camera and if there’s a camera there’s a plan; and if it’s here
it’s for money, like she’s some animal trained to do tricks;
when I see black men picking cotton on plantations I get that
somewhere there’s pain for them, I don’t have to see it, no one
has to show it to me for me to know it’s there; and when I see a
wom an under glass, I know the same, a sex animal trained for
sex tricks; and the camera’s ready; maybe M asta’s not in the
frame. Picking cotton’s good; you get strong; black and
strong; getting fucked in the throat’s good; you get fucked and
female; a double-female girl, with two vaginas, one on top.
M aybe her name’s Linda; hey, Linda. Cheri Tart ain’t Cheri
but maybe Linda’s Linda; how come all these assholes buy it,
as i f they ain’t looking at Lassie or Rin Tin Tin; it’s just, pardon
me, they’re dogs and she’s someone real; they’re H ollyw ood
stars too— she’s Tim es Square trash; there’s one o f them and
there’s so many thousands o f her you couldn’t tell them apart
even when they’re in separate coffins. There’s these girls here,
all behind glass; as if they’re insects you put under glass; you
put morphine to them to knock them out and you mount
them; these weird crawling things, under glass, on display;
Tim es Square’s a zoo, they got women like specimens under
glass; block by city block; cages assembled on cement; under a
darkening sky, the blood’s on it; wind sweeping the garbage
and it’s swirling like dust in a storm; and on display, lit by
neon, they have these creatures, so obscene they barely look
human at all, you never saw a person that looked like them,
including anyone beaten down, including street trash, including anyone raped however many times; because they’re all
painted up and polished as if you had an apple with m aggots
and worm s and someone dipped it in lacquer and said here it is,
beautiful, for you, to eat; it’s as i f their mouths were all swelled
up and as if they was purple between their legs and as if their
breasts were hot-air balloons, not flesh and blood, with skin,
with feeling to the touch, instead it’s a joke, some swollen
joke, a pasted-on gag, what’s so dirty to men about breasts so
they put tassles on them and have them swirl around in circles
and call them the ugliest names; as if they ain’t attached to
human beings; as if they’re party tricks or practical jokes or the
equivalent o f farts, big, vulgar farts; they make them always
deformed; as if there’s real people; citizens; men; with flat
chests, they look down, they see their shoes, a standard for
what a human being is; and there’s these blow-up dolls you