You can’t say it that way any more.   

Bothered about beauty you have to   

Come out into the open, into a clearing, 

And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you 

Is OK. To demand more than this would be strange 

Of you, you who have so many lovers,   

People who look up to you and are willing   

To do things for you, but you think 

It’s not right, that if they really knew you . . . 

So much for self-analysis. Now, 

About what to put in your poem-painting:   

Flowers are always nice, particularly delphinium.   

Names of boys you once knew and their sleds,   

Skyrockets are good—do they still exist? 

There are a lot of other things of the same quality   

As those I’ve mentioned. Now one must 

Find a few important words, and a lot of low-keyed, 

Dull-sounding ones. She approached me 

About buying her desk. Suddenly the street was   

Bananas and the clangor of Japanese instruments.   

Humdrum testaments were scattered around. His head 

Locked into mine. We were a seesaw. Something   

Ought to be written about how this affects   

You when you write poetry: 

The extreme austerity of an almost empty mind 

Colliding with the lush, Rousseau-like foliage of its desire to communicate   

Something between breaths, if only for the sake   

Of others and their desire to understand you and desert you 

For other centers of communication, so that understanding 

May begin, and in doing so be undone.