Once Read Free Page A

&
    bronze
    in the bright sun.

THE BLACK PRINCE
    Very proud
    he barely asked directions
    to a nearby
    hotel
    but no
    tired-eyed
    little village chief
    should spend his
    first night
    in chilly London
    alone.

MEDICINE
    Grandma sleeps with
    my sick
    grand-
    pa so she
    can get him
    during the night
    medicine
    to stop
    the pain
    In
    the morning
    clumsily
    I
    wake
    them
    Her eyes
    look at me
    from under-
    neath
    his withered
    arm
    The
    medicine
    is all
    in
    her long
    un-
    braided
    hair.

BALLAD OF THE BROWN GIRL
    i’ve got two
    hundred
    dollars
    the girl said
    on her head
    she wore a
    school cap
    —blue—
    & brown she
    looked no
    more than
    ten
    but a freshman in
    college?
    well, hard to tell—
    i’ll give you
    ‘three hundred’
    ‘fo’ hunna’
    ‘five wads of jack’
    but “mrs. whatsyourname …”
    the doctor says
    with impatiently tolerant
    eyes
    you should want
    it
    you know …
    talk it over with
    your folks
    you may be
    surprised.…
    the next morning
    her slender
    neck broken
    her note
    short and
    of cryptic
    collegiate
    make—
    just
    “Question—
    did ever brown
    daughter to black
    father a white
    baby
    take—?”

SUICIDE
    First, suicide notes should be
    (not long) but written
    second,
    all suicide notes
    should be signed
    in blood
    by hand
    and to the point—
    that point being, perhaps,
    that there is none.
    Thirdly, if it is the thought
    of rest that
    fascinates
    laziness should be admitted
    in the clearest terms.
    Then, all things done
    ask those outraged
    consider their happiest
    summer
    & tell if the days it
    adds up to
    is one.

EXCUSE
    Tonight it is the wine (or not the wine)
    or a letter from you (or not a letter from you)
    I sit
    listen to the complacency of the rain
    write a poem, kill myself there
    It brings less pain—
    Tonight it rains, tomorrow will be bright
    tomorrow I’ll say “yesterday was the same
    only the rain …
    and my shoes too tight.”

TO DIE
BEFORE ONE WAKES
MUST BE GLAD
    to die before
    one wakes
must be glad
     (to the same extent
 
     maybe
 
          that it is also
 
     sad)
    a slipping away
    in glee
    unobserved and
    free in the wide—
    area felt spatially,
    heart intact.
    to die before one
    wakes
    must be joyous
    full swing glorious
    (rebellion)
    (victory)
    unremarked triumph
    love letters untorn
    foetal fears
    unborn
    monsters given
    berth
    (love unseen, guiltily,
    as creation)
    (life “good”)
    to die before one
    wakes
    must be a dance
    (perhaps a jig)
    and visual-
    skipping tunes of
    color
    across smirking
    eyelids
    happy bluely …
    thought running gaily
    out and out.
    to die before
    one wakes
    must be
    nice
    (green little passions
    red dying
    into ice
    spinningly
    (like a circus)
    the blurred landscape
    of the runner’s
    hurried
    mile)
    one’s lips curving
    sweetly
    in one’s most subtle smile.

EXERCISES ON THEMES FROM LIFE
    i
    Speaking of death and decay
    It hardly matters
    Which
    Since both are on the
    way, maybe—
    to being daffodils.
    ii
    It is not about that
    a poet I knew used
    to say
    speaking with haunted eyes
    of liking and disliking—
    Now I think
    uncannily
    of life.
    iii
    My nausea has nothing
    to do
    With the fact that
    you love me
    It is probably just
    something I ate
    at your mother’s.
    iv
    To keep up a
    passionate courtship
    with a tree
    one must be
    completely mad
    In the forest
    in the dark one night
    I lost my way.
    v
    If I were a patriot
    I would kiss the flag
    As it is,
    Let us just go.
    vi
    My father liked very much
    the hymns
    in church
    in the amen corner,
    on rainy days
    he would wake
    himself up
    to hear them.
    vii
    I like to see you try
    to worm yourself
    away from me
    first you plead
    your age
    as if my young heart
    felt any of the tiredness
    in your bones …
    viii
    Making our bodies touch
    across your breezy bed
    how warm you are …
    cannot we save our little
    quarrel
    until tomorrow?
    ix
    My fear of burial
    is all tied up with
    how used I am
    to the spring …!

A Biography of Alice