Sometimes I think

you have no sense of the body at all

that it breed . need . take joy
                                                  /
                                                     must give .
       sponsion, re-

sponse, that

I do go surety for you constantly means less

than the seed spill out

.                                               (handsel)

.                                                       alone, no gift

Moloch   .   Moloch
.                                  /
.                                      through fire
Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass thru the fire

to Moloch, I am the Lord ...

Six men of some desert tribe, their women

for that time unclean, stand about the camp's

fire

jacking off : an offering to

Moloch   .   Moloch

.                                               OR ANY WARMTH WILL DO?

or why are fires, why is

.                                               fire that personal a thing? that

.                                               communal a thing?

But the response from the hand at the base of the spine

.                                                    spreadeagled after, los dos,

only the movements of the chest, the breath, the breath, ()

Leviticus!

       oil for the lamps

I move the responsibility

shifting the load on my own back

one side to other of that world

.                                               we so rarely breathe in

.                                               the act of your life

spontaneity spread in the loon-mad nuptial, the

.                                                     digging,

.                                         where are you at, that

there is no and, no sound, no conjunction but but

or or, this poem can find, the sprigs it does portend

the responses I do concern myself with

.                                                 fear

.                                                 or boredom

.                                                 or diarrhea,

this fierce year called the thirty-sixth, could end

what we both most want

intend   .   No lie,

I revere the flesh too much, while

you think I should pick up my papers or take

.                                             the bottles down.

I hope I die .

      soon.

[1962/1966]