I asked him to stop the music,
the raunchy, thrusting drums,
sounding tinnish, cheap, back
alley, but beautifully persistent
tom-tomming so that I could
open the giant egg on my right,
the casket for Mother’s corpse,
for I needed silence to bring her
back properly, to show her how
her son had survived her be-
littlements, and with great
alacrity, had shed the alligator
skin which she had poured on
in layers of muddy martyrdom,
and show her how I had erupted
from cages, had somehow begun to
like myself for brief moments, all
of which I hoped would allow her
to rest easily in hell rather than
trapsing this earth, working
diligently to finally, decisively
ruin me.

.