torn, anything he took stays gone. I look for her; I scan the
walls; I stare; I see; I know; I will make m yself into a weapon; I
will turn m yself into a new kind o f death, for them; I got a new
revolutionary love filling my heart; the real passion; the real
thing. Che didn’t know nothing, he was ruling class. Huey killed
a girl, a young prostitute, seventeen; he was pimping but she
wasn’t one o f his. He was cruising, slow, in a car. Baby, she
called out, baby, oh babe. He shot her;
said baby; he said cunt. Some o f them whisper, a term o f
endearment; some o f them shout. There’s gestures more
eloquent than words. She said something, he said something,
she died. Sister child, lost heart, poor girl, I’ll avenge you, sister
o f m y heart. Did it hurt or was death the easy part? I don’t know
what m y one did, except for taking her; but it don’t matter,
really, does it? N ot what; nor why; nor who; nor how.
T E N
April 30, 1974
(Age 27)
Ma. Ssa. Da. Ma. Ssa. Da. Ma. Ssa. Da. Hear m y heart beat.
Massada. I was born there and I died there. There was time;
seventy years. The Je w s were there, the last ones, the last free
ones, seventy years. The zealots, they were called; m y folks,
m y tribe; how I love them in m y heart. N ever give in. N ever
surrender. Slavery is obscene. Die first. B y your ow n hand; if
that’s what it takes; rather than be conquered; die free. N o
shame for the women, they used to say; conquered women;
shame. Massada. I used to see this picture in m y mind, a
wom an on a rock. I wrote about her all the time. Every time I
tried to write a story I wrote there is a woman on a rock, even
in the eighth grade, there’s a woman, a strong woman, a fierce
wom an, on a rock. I didn’t know what happened in the story. I
couldn’t think o f a plot. I just saw her. She was proud. She was
strong. She was wild by our standards or so it seemed, as if
there was no other word; but she didn’t seem wild; because she
was calm; upright; with square shoulders, muscled; her eyes
were big and fearless and looked straight ahead; not like
wom en today, looking down. She was ancient, from an old
time, simple and stark, dirty and dark, austere, a proud,
unconquerable wom an on a rock. The rock towers. The rock
is barren; nothing grow s, nothing erodes, nothing changes; it
is hard and old and massive. The rock is vast. The rock is
majestic, high and bare and alone; so alone the sun nearly
weeps for it; isolated from man and God; unbreachable; a
towering wall o f bare rock, alone in a desert where the sun
makes the sand bleed. The sun is hot, pure, unmediated by
clouds or sky, a white sun; blinding white; no yellow; there’s a
