ASTED MY BLOOD If this brain's over-tempered consider that the fire was want and the hammers were fists. I've tasted my blood too much to love what I was born to. But my mother's look was a field of brown oats, soft-bearded; her voice rain and air rich with lilacs: and I loved her too much to like how she dragged her days like a sled over gravel. Playmates? I remember where their skulls roll! One died hungry, gnawing grey porch-planks; one fell, and landed so hard he splashed; and many and many come up atom by atom in the worm-casts of Europe. My deep prayer a curse. My deep prayer the promise that this won't be. My deep prayer my cunning, my love, my anger, and often even my forgiveness that this won't be and be. I've tasted my blood too much to abide what I was born to.