I Don't Believe Civilization Can

Here I Am In The Garden Laughing An Old Woman With Heavy Breasts And A Nicely Mapped Face How Did This Happen Well That's Who I Wanted To Be At Last A Woman In The Old Style Sitting Stout Thighs Apart Under A Big Skirt Grandchild Sliding On Off My Lap A Pleasant Summer Perspiration That's My Old Man Across The Yard He's Talking To The Meter Reader He's Telling Him The World's Sad Story How Electricity Is Oil Or Uranium And So Forth I Tell My Grandson Run Over To Your Grandpa Ask Him To Sit Beside Me For A Minute I Am Suddenly Exhausted By My Desire To Kiss His Sweet Explaining Lips.

As An Older Person, I Do Feel An Obligation To Tell The Story About What Was Really Happening In The Fifties, Sixties, And Seventies, As I Saw It.

What We Owe Men Is Some Freedom From Their Part In A Murderous Game In Which They Kick Each Other To Death With One Foot, Bracing Themselves On Our Various Comfortable Places With The Other.

I Do Lots Of Reading And Speaking At Many Universities About Literature And Also About Politics, Which Is As Much A Part Of My Life As The Literature.

I Might Write Four Lines Or I Might Write Twenty. I Subtract And I Add Until I Really Hit Something I Want To Do. You Don't Always Whittle Down, Sometimes You Whittle Up.