All afternoon I dreamed of Uncle Piljerk Peter. He lives on cloud nine. He ties his pill to a ten-pound test line and drops it down the first child’s throat and jerks it back up and drops it down the second child’s throat and jerks it back up and so on so forth until the pill loses its strength and no one can be saved anymore. This is a story out of a southern children’s book. It’s all about the black people and how funny it is when their children die. It’s all about dying and love and how there isn’t enough strength to go around. It’s about how you weren’t strong enough to love me but I don’t care. Why should I care? It’s not your fault my father ruined my mother’s life.

AUBADE

There was one night knowing all my songs

you came to me

and all night long you crossed my body

with your music

Oh, I can still sing every note

of all the songs you taught me

Every gaudy jaybird

Every yellow warbler

THE FLIES AND THE HONEY POT

A pot of honey having been upset in a grocer’s shop

the flies came around it in droves to eat it up nor would

they move from the spot while there was a drop left.

Finally they became so clogged in it they could not

fly. Miserable creatures, who, for the sake of a

moment’s pleasure, had thrown their lives away.

This is the wisdom of white-haired ladies

on verandah swings,

my early warners,

my corseted teachers.

Stifled in luscious sweets

all things are timeless.

Did my ladies know the honey

dripping on the floor?

The white necessity of love?

Or only bear its burdens.

I am caught forever in those summer mornings,

reading their books,

smelling their coffee and their powder,

hating their warnings.

GUEST

Tied to memory’s plumbline the night

like a long dark road leads on

and on into the silent spaces of the heart

The days lengthen

This is the season the surveyor

doubles his team to take readings

it is dawn go on

February 10, 1956

Dear Rhoda,

They are the best poems I have ever read. I don’t know what they mean exactly but I know I want to read the letters too and I want to make love to you more than anything in the world. You can have my goddamn pin and throw it in the river. Here it is. Either wear it or throw it away.

Love,

Malcolm

February 13, 1956

Dearest Malcolm,