Postcard 127

The Unbecoming of Self (Harpers 336) They take me, take, take me away & that takes my sleep away. There she is in that place & she can't get out. I'm like a slow motion version of my old self. Where's my wife? I want my wife. Giraffe -- they just run around don't they? Chickens -- I guess chickens are animals. Pigs! We had a farm & I liked the pigs! I feel very good all the time, oh boy! Why is that woman bothering me? My butt is drunk. I have everything done! Everything done. Its all going in the place that goes in the place for each. This is not a bad thing. It is just a different thing. It requires different kinds of attention.

For all of us who fear -- I must die so that others may live. It will be my mind, I suspect, that kills me. Or, amusingly, my other end - either one incontinent. Lets not discount a failure of skin, or my heart gets up in protest. Anyhow, I will go, finally unknown, finally unknowable. I may leave, but I will go and others will be. Should I rage, should I fight, who or what would I resist, but me -- unknown letting go? I say easy sink into dark sea unrelenting. I say, feed another stream. Fold up on myself. And, half written, half unknown, O rejoice at being. A being beyond my own design, wondering if I did it well. Well, did I? Let go of words, of hard won thoughts like me, thou, I. I must die so others may be. Return to sea.