Only The Slow Reader Will Notice The

But The Body Fails Us And The Mirror Knows, And We No Longer Insist That The Gray Hush Be Carried Off Its Surface By The Cloth, For We Have Run To Fat, And Wrinkles Encircle The Eyes And Notch The Neck Where The Skin Wattles, And The Flesh Of The Arms Hangs Loose Like An Overlarge Sleeve, Veins Thicken Like Ropes And Empurple The Body As Though They Had Been Drawn There By A Pen, Freckles Darken, Liver Spots Appear, The Hairah, The Hair Is Exhausted And Gray And Lusterless, In Weary Rolls Like Cornered Lint.

And I Am In Retirement From Love.

Literature Is Composed Of Quarter Truths, And The Quarters Are Often Spent On Penny Candy.

I Do Think Of My Reader, Or Listener, Really, More Often, If I Give A Lecture, For Example, And I Know That I'm Talking To These People; I Enjoy Sort Of Preening Them A Bit. But It's A Matter Of Decorum, Basically.

My Face Is Muffled In My Mother's Clothing. Her Rhinestones Injure Me. See: My Feet Are Going. Fish Flee The Forefinger Of My Aunt. The Sun Streams Over The Geraniums. What Has This To Do With What I Feel, With What I Am.