I Remember, In Hot Floods, The Way

He Must Love Me, I Thought, Amazed. A Faint Whiff Of Nausea Hit Me At Seeing Pain As Proof Of Love, But It Seemed True. Unavoidable.

Just As A Snowflakewent On To Feed A Puddle That Filled A Stream And Then The River, Thepumpkin Patch Is A Gathering Of Molecules From My Old Goats, Chickens,and Cats, Feeding The Underworld Of Dirt Creatures. And Somewhere, Myfather's Ashes Mingle With Birds, Air, And Sea.

Beside Mama, In My Own Folding Chair, With My Feet Sticking Out In Front Of Me, I Thought About My Own Innards. Just A Few Months Before I'd Had No Idea Whether My Reproductive Equipment Worked. There Was No Evidence. But That Week I Had Become A Full-fledged Bleeder And Was Still Absorbed By This First Change In Myself That I Had Ever Noticed. The Click And Buzz Of My Synapses Kept Making The Same Connection. If You Can Change, You Can Also End. Death Had Always Been A Theory To Me. Now I Knew. The Terror Hurt Good And I Nursed It And Played It Like A Loose Tooth.

In My Next Life, I Plan To Be A More Respectable Creature. For Now, This Is What Is Given To Us. So I Don't Know - I Think We're All Freaks At Heart. I Think Some People Strive Desperately To Be Normal, And I Think Other People Strive To Be Abnormal.

Well, It Arose Out Of Two Long-term Concerns - The First Being The Possibility Of Genetic Manipulation, Nature Versus Nurture, What Constitutes How People Get To Be How They Are.