your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.

They don’t make it
the beautiful die in flame—
suicide pills, rat poison, rope wh
ever...
they rip their arms off,

I pick up the skirt,
I pick up the sparkling beads
in black,
this thing that moved once
around flesh,

hooray say the roses, today is bla
and we are red as blood.
hooray say the roses, today is Wed
and we bloom wher soldiers fell
and lovers too,

my father always said, “early to b
early to rise makes a man healthy,
and wise.”
it was lights out at 8 p.m. in our
and we were up at dawn to the smel

of course, I may die in the next t
and I’m ready for that
but what I’m really worried about
that my editor—publisher might ret
even though he is ten years younge

O lord, he said, Japanese women,
real women, they have not forgotte
bowing and smiling
closing the wounds men have made;
but American women will kill you l

I’ll settle for the 6 horse
on a rainy afternoon
a paper cup of coffee
in my hand
a little way to go,

here comes the fishhead singing
here comes the baked potato in dra
here comes nothing to do all day l
here comes another night of no sle
here comes the phone wringing the

first time my father overheard me
this bit of music he asked me,
“what is it?”
“it’s called Love For Three Oran
I informed him.