Very Early In My Life It Was

I'm Still There, Watching Those Possessed Children, As Far Away From The Mystery Now As I Was Then. I've Never Written, Though I Thought I Wrote, Never Loved, Though I Thought I Loved, Never Done Anything But Wait Outside The Closed Door.

No Other Human Being, No Woman, No Poem Or Music, Book Or Painting Can Replace Alcohol In Its Power To Give Man The Illusion Of Real Creation.

The Words Emerge From Her Body Without Her Realizing It, As If She Were Being Visited By The Memory Of A Language Long Forsaken.

When A Woman Drinks It's As If An Animal Were Drinking, Or A Child. Alcoholism Is Scandalous In A Woman, And A Female Alcoholic Is Rare, A Serious Matter. It's A Slur On The Divine In Our Nature.

She Says People Ought To Learn To Live Like Them, With The Body Abandoned In A Wilderness, And In The Mind The Memory Of A Single Kiss, A Single Word, A Single Look To Stand For A Whole Love.