Mama drew my cot to the window so I can look at the stars. I will not look at the stars. There is a black chimney throwing up sparks and one tall flame like gold hair in a blaze.... I know now what I shall do.... I will set fire to him and he will burn up into a tall flame-- he will scream into the sky and sparks will fly out of him-- he will burn and burn... and his blazing hair shall light up the world.
Before he hit me-- I knew he was going to-- I thought about Jude.... I thought if he'd fight... but he shriveled all up... he lay down like a fear.
Mama never knew about Jude. You always wanted to tell her, but somehow you never did. You were afraid she'd smile and say he wasn't real-- that he was only a little dream-boy, because the grass didn't fall down under his feet.... He is fading now.... He is just lines... like a drawing.... You can see mama in between. When she moves she rubs some of him out.
Nasal intonations of light and clicking tongues... publicity of windows stoning me with pent-up cries... smells of abattoirs... smells of long-dead meat.
Some day-end-- while the sand is yet cozy as a blanket off the warm body of a squaw, and the jaguars are out to kill... with a blue-black night coming on and a painted cloud stalking the first star-- I shall go alone into the Silence... the coiled Silence... where a cry can run only a little way and waver and dwindle and be lost.
And there... where tiny antlers clinch and strain as life grapples in a million avid points, and threshing things strike and die, letting their hate live on in the spreading purple of a wound... I too will make covert of a crevice in the night, and turn and watch... nose at the cleft's edge.
That was a great night we spied upon See-sawing home, Singing a hot sweet song to the super-stars Shuffling off behind the smoke-haze... Fog-horns sentimentalizing on the river... Lights dwindling to shining slits In the wet asphalt... Purring lights... red and green and golden-whiskered... Digging daintily pointed claws in the soft mud... ... But you did not know... As the trains made golden augers Boring in the darkness... How my heart kept racing out along the rails, As a spider runs along a thread And hauls him in again To some drawing point... You did not know How wild ducks' wings Itch at dawn... How at dawn the necks of wild ducks Arch to the sun And new-mown air Trickles sweet in their gullets.