" March 15, 1998

Let me forget
when the hanged man
looks in the window.
Outside, the desperate
speak in a lost language.
Let us in, they sigh,
with the tongues of waterfalls.
But you, out of breath,
category of the misplaced;
serial-killer of my days;
while my left ventricle
pumps the exact pressure
of the universe . . .
in spite of your default,
with no substantial reason,
I speak for you
as though you are still here.
We are arranged like that.
A sad mistake, a Mendelbrot,
a fractal glitch, a gift from zero. "

― Ruth Stone , In the Next Galaxy