At long last purified by fire. Only

In New York could the body be free enough

To completely turn over its passion to words

Too stupid to ever conceal.

"His first initial is 'G'---

"And I fell for him like a ton of bricks."

Arriving by plane in L.A.

She found him but recently dressed,

Arms bare in the rain. "Gosh, it's so

Perfectly hard!" she breathed on her ticket.

And then: "What woman was happier, ever?"

In 1935 Arletta Duncan, the Harvest Queen of Belle Plaine,

Iowa, decided to bow out. She collected all the memorabilia

of her Hollywood career and made a great bonfire in a va-

cant lot in San Pedro. Then she mounted the gigantic, lethal

letter "H" that was part of a development sign spelling out

her a crown, flung herself into the air. Her leap landed her

square in a clump of prickly-pear cactus, where she was later

discovered, "a broken body hiding a broken heart"--her tale

typical of many others.

O desert night!

The magician leaves, cruel fire descends.

His final weapon in the showdown:

"I need you," through tears,

Dumbly connecting the words through smoke

Until finally the pleasure is ours.

From Domes (1973)