Where I begin is no beginning; 
Except I shall make one tomorrow, 
Fire myself out north and west, 

At one time, under this same title,
I told the whole story of the kidnapped girl
and her Mexican tortures.

In 1936 it was a hot spring in
Cincinnati
We were in English class and the

It’s always the same:
the perfect vellum messages of sympathy from The Best
                          Magazines,
the snippets of bright paper scrawled “Sorry”—

Leo where are you now?
Playing at some two-bit carnival in Altoona?
Married to your fat pink lady from the Bowery?

A simple statement like “Void where prohibited”—
How shall I read it?
How shall I think it?

only its maternal dark
could make us luminous.

and you shudder
as you realize it’s only you

Circle of suffering,
Of madness.

I rattled off the dates
of wars and revolutions.
I rejoiced