she's young, she said,

but look at me,

I have pretty ankles,

and look at my wrists, I have pretty

wrists

o my god,

I thought it was all working,

and now it's her again,

every time she phones you go crazy,

you told me it was over

you told me it was finished,

listen, I've lived long enough to become a

good woman,

why do you need a bad woman?

you need to be tortured, don't you?

you think life is rotten if somebody treats you

rotten it all fits,

doesn't it?

tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a

piece of shit?

and my son, my son was going to meet you.

I told my son

and I dropped all my lovers.

I stood up in a cafe and screamed

I'M IN LOVE,

and now you've made a fool of me. . .

I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.

hold me, she said, will you please hold me?

I've never been in one of these things before, I said,

these triangles. . .

she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all

over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had

a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when

she screamed and started beating me I held her

wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,

centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and

sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.

there was no creature living as foul as I

and all my poems were

false.