A Poem About What

She Said

"Your chance of being born again
Is slight at best," she said.
And on that day my heart changed;
It's never been the same.

To cruelty I awoke,
Or so my senses said,
Though how was I to know
Such hunger's never fed?

You can dip back in for love,
You can dip back in for hate,
But you'll never find satisfaction there,
Ever, ever again!

So to the sky I cried,
I cried, aloud,
I cried for peace,
I cried for war on peace...

And though I lived alone
I heard in every crowd
The whispered repetitions
Of what she first had said:

"Success-in-death might please us all
Who could not find it here;
No one's dark imaginings could be worse
Than what we suffer here!"

rcs.
4th draft: 02/14/03

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Nobody loves me but my mother,
and she could be jivin' too. B.B. King

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