I am looking for a past I can rely on in order to look to death with equanimity. What was given me:

When I die choose a star and name it after me that you may know I have not abandoned or forgotten you.

Without sexual attraction, there i… the brutal movement of the sea. The face peers out of its skeletal… and hands reach like bone. Without love, the streets

at fifty I approach myself, eighteen years of age, seated despondently on the concret… of my father’s house, wishing to be gone from there

Earth hard to my heels bear me up like a child standing on its mother’s belly. I am a surprised guest to the air

This tree has two million and seve… Perhaps I missed a leaf or two bu… at having persisted in counting by… and marked down on paper with penc… Adding them up was a pleasure I c…

As she walked she would look back over her shoulder and trip upon sidewalk cracks or bump into people to whom she would apol… profusely, her head still turned.

Whatever we do, whether we light strangers’€™ cigarettes’€”it may t… to be a detective wanting to know… with a light on a lonely street ni… or whether we turn away and get a…

Late in 1962 New York newspapers… old child being raped on a roof, a… ground. I draw near to the roof’s edge and seek someone to lift

I’m very pleased to be a body. Ca… As you hold mine I feel firmly as… and I think all life is a body. I… especially with the sun shining on… I have hurt the body. That’s when…

It is heart-rending to know a kiss cannot cure the world of its illne… nor can your happiness, nor your t… of being a discrete person, for th… fall like rain into the ground

Finally, to forgo love is to kiss… is to let rain fall nakedly upon y… is to respect fire, is to study man’s eyes and his ges… as he talks,

It’s midnight, the house silent, in the distance a musical instrume… being played softly. I am alone. It’s as if the world has come to a… on a low musical note

If we could be brought to the surf… like a gleaming fish and served fo… if we could eat and swallow our ow… to make a good meal, if we could g… for ourselves and feed on the glea…

I close my eyes like a good little… as I was told to do by my mother w… and before bed I brush my teeth an… as I was told, and look forward to… I do all things required of me to…