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Let the dead pray for their own dead. What is their pity to me? IN TERROR OF HOSPITAL BILLS I still have some money To eat with, alone And frightened, knowing how soon I will waken a poor man. It snows freely and freely hardens On the lawns of my hope, my secret Hounded and flayed. I wonder What words to beg money with. Pardon me, sir, could you? Which way is St. Paul? I thirst. I am a full-blooded Sioux Indian. Soon I am sure to become so hungry I will have to leap barefoot through gas-fire veils of shame, I will have to stalk timid strangers On the whorehouse corners. Oh moon, sow leaves on my hands, On my seared face, oh I love you. My throat is open, insane, Tempting pneumonia. But my life was never soprecious To me as now. I will have to beg coins After dark. I will learn to scent the police, And sit or go blind, stay mute, be taken for dead For your sake, oh my secret, My life. SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER 143 ...

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