"The Reckonings" has a two-line epigraph,
the last two lines of which come just before the songs.
In "Reckonings," just the two lines go,
"I cannot find the dance to rid me of this poison."
And then, in Songs, the completing couplet is,
"I cannot find the house to hold me when I dance."
These are the poems then that I started
to write when I decided I didn't want to do
any more retrospective poems.
"I am empty, given to a silence I despise and need.
I make nothing true.
When I try to speak without lies, nothing comes.
I cannot bear the silence.
My mouth is a deep lie crying out,
my face a method of deceit.
My hands lie cruelly, abrupt and graceless.
So I hang from my bones like rotten fruit,
bleeding and sweet, and only half
covered by this swarm of worms."