Images are probably the most important part of the poem. First of all you want to tell a story, but images are what are going to shore it up and get to the heart of the matter.

I rot on the wall, my own Dorian Gray.

Images are probably the most important part of the poem. First of all you want to tell a story, but images are what are going to shore it up and get to the heart of the matter.

I wonder if the artist ever lives his life--he is so busy recreating it.

Need is not quite belief.

The snow has quietness in it; no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.

Do you like me?” No answer. Silence bounced, fell off his tongue and sat between us and clogged my throat. It slaughtered my trust. It tore cigarettes out of my mouth. We exchanged blind words, and I did not cry, I did not beg, but blackness filled my ears, blackness lunged in my heart, and something that had been good, a sort of kindly oxygen, turned into a gas oven.