Obscene monosyllable, it lingers for a while on the roof of the mouth's house. I stand here savoring the sound, like salt. But I thought different, knowing how madness doesn't believe in metaphor. Gull calls, broken shells, the quarried coast. This is where America ends, dropping off to the depths.
Death comes differently in California.
Copyright 1971 by Erica Mann Jong. Used by permission, all rights reserved.