I Wish To Cry. Yet, I Laugh,

Life Has Been Some Combination Of Fairy-tale Coincidence And Joie De Vivre And Shocks Of Beauty Together With Some Hurtful Self-questioning.

I Laid My Face To The Smooth Face Of The Marble And Howled My Loss Into The Cold Salt Rain.

But Writing Poems And Letters Doesn't Seem To Do Much Good.

Secretly, In Studies And Attics And Schoolrooms All Over America, People Must Be Writing.

I Felt Dumb And Subdued. Every Time I Tried To Concentrate, My Mind Glided Off, Like A Skater, Into A Large Empty Space, And Pirouetted There, Absently.