The word I spoke in anger weighs less than a parsley seed, but a road runs through it that leads to my grave, that bought-and-paid-for lot on a salt-sprayed hill in Truro where the scrub pines overlook the bay. Half-way I'm dead enough, strayed from my own nature and my fierce hold on life. If I could cry, I'd cry, but I'm too old to be anybody's child. Liebchen, with whom should I quarrel except in the hiss of love, that harsh, irregular flame?