If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up.

I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death, and something else I'd rather not recall just now.

There is a sacred, secret line in loving which attraction and even passion cannot cross.

Today I have so much to do: I must kill memory once and for all, I must turn my soul to stone, I must learn to live again. Unless ... Summer's ardent rustling is like a festival outside my window.

Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.

I should be proud to have my memory graced, but only if the monument be placed... here, where I endured three hundred hours in line before the implacable iron bars.

The word landed with a stony thud Onto my still-beating breast. Nevermind, I was prepared, I will manage with the rest. I have a lot of work to do today; I need to slaughter memory, Turn my living soul to stone Then teach myself to live again. . . But how. The hot summer rustles Like a carnival outside my window; I have long had this premonition Of a bright day and a deserted house.