shivers into blackened bits....
You hold on to a wall that whirls around
and the gate is a black hole.
You grope your way in like a toad
that's blinded by a stone...
and mama puts on cold wet rags
that get hot soon....
Hush! don't let's talk about the sun.

: :

When you pass by the ditch where Janie is
You run very fast
and look at the other side.
Jude says Janie did love me
only she couldn't forgive me,
and that you can love people very much
and never, never, never forgive them....
so we poked a stick in the bottle-green water.
But only weeds came up
and an old top with the paint washed off.

: :

Jude and I
wave to the new moon
curled right up like one gold hair
on the bald-head sandhill.
Mama peeps out the window and smiles.
She thinks
I am playing with myself...
Run, Jude, run with the wind--
but hold my hand tight
or the wind,
looking for some one to play with,
will take me away from you!
Wind with no one to play with
cooees the orange-trees--
stay-at-home orange trees,
have to nurse oranges,
greeny-gold.
Wind shouts to the grass--
run-away-grass
tugs at its roots,
but the earth holds tight
and the grass falls down
and wind boos over it.
Wind whistles the bees--
bees too busy
with taking home stuff out of flowers
won't look back--
bees always going somewhere.
Only Jude and I--
heads over shoulders
watching all roads at one time--
run with the wind,
going to nowhere.

: :

Jude and I
were weeding our garden
when we heard his whip--
must have been a new whip
to cut off dandelion-heads at one swing....
He was the kind of boy you knew when you had Celia....
with nice clothes on and curls
crawling about his collar
like little golden slugs,
and his man was leading his horse.
I wish I hadn't run to meet him....
If you hadn't run to meet him
he mightn't have trod on your garden and said:
Get out of my field you dirty little beggar...
he mightn't have struck you with his whip....
How the daisies stared....
I hate daisies--
stupid white faces--
skinny necks
craning over the grass!
I said It is not your field,
and he struck me again.
But he didn't make me run.
His hand
smelled of sweet soap...
he couldn't shake me off,
but his man did....
Funny--how the sky fell down
and turned over and over
like a