In "Portrait with Tequila," which is set,
let's say, in Dallas.
And the-- this is, again, a young woman.
Everyone here would know, but in many, many places,
they don't know how tequila is made.
And so isn't it made by pressing something out
of cactus or something?
That's what I thought, anyway, when I wrote
the last stanza of this poem.
[LAUGHTER]
"Pull down the shades.
Your Black boyfriend is coming.
He's not like you.
He wants to live in the suburbs.
You want to paint.
Your hand does your dreaming for you, the same hand,
braceleted with scars, that smooths down cats, sheets, men.
Under it, your body is turning into landscape-- look!
Some metamorphosis of the moon.
The ancients who watch you from their porches--
you and your earrings, in your bare feet,
in that long boy's undershirt you wear,
because your breasts are small, they're all asleep now,
the insects, the wind.
It's late, but then he's married,
and this is still Texas.
The night is a giant cactus.
Potent, aromatic, the liquors you press from it."