It is a country where you can touch nothing: the food, the toilets, the people. The flies are everywhere. You come with your pockets stuffed with money, but there’s nothing you can buy for fear of contamination, and nothing you can let touch you.

 

For I will consider my dog Poochkin
(& his long-lost brothers, Chekarf & Dogstoyevsky).
For he is the reincarnation of a great canine poet.

I, Erica Jong, in the midst of my life,
        having had two parents, two sisters,
        two husbands, two books of poems

On cold days
it is easy to be reasonable,
to button the mouth against kisses,

My friends are tired.
The ones who are married are tired
of being married.