The night, dark-cloaked like a procuress, brought him to me, willing, light as a shadow, speaking words of love in some tender language I do not know ... With the crows came the morning, and my limbs warm of love, were once again so lonely... At my doorstep I saw a pock-marked face, a friendly smile and a rolleiflex. We will go for a drive, he said. Or go see the lakes. I have washed my face with soap and water, brushed my hair a dozen times, draped myself in six yards of printed voile. Ah... does it still show, my night of love? You look pale, he said. Not pale, not really pale. It's the lipstick's anemia. Out in the street, we heard The sirens go, and I paused in talk to weave their wail with the sound of his mirthless laughter. He said, they are testing the sirens today. I am happy. He really was lavish with words. I am happy, just being with you. But you . . . you love another, I know, he said, perhaps a handsome man, a young and handsome man. Not young, not handsome, I thought, just a filthy snob. It's a one-sided love, I said. What can I do for yoou? I smiled A smile is such a detached thing, I wear it like a flower. Near the lake, a pregnant girl bared her dusky breasts and washed them sullenly. On the old cannon-stand, crows bickered over a piece of lizard-meat and the white sun was there and everywhere . . . I want your photo, lying-down, nineteen-thirty-four guns, he said, against those rusty nineteen-thirty-four guns, will you ? Sure. Just arrange my limbs and tell Me when to smile. I shut my eyes, but inside eye-lids, there was no more night, no more love, or peace, only the white, white sun burning, burning, burning... Ah, why does love come to me like pain again and again and again?