"I want to touch the earth,
and the fruit to come,
and maybe a fruit will come
of me."
She was too old for such hopes,
but so was the earth.
And as we stood by the factory-tilled-land
beneath a halo of smog
I heard her quote ancient words of Sappho:
"Alas, I shall be ever maiden,
no honey nore bee for me.."
"But this place", she turned to me,
"This place
is unvirgin earth. It has not been a sex-goddess,
but a whore. And now it is old and wrinkled."
We went quietly away.