At the Justice Department November 15, 1969

Brown gas-fog, white beneath the street lamps. Cut off on three sides, all space filled with our bodies. Bodies that stumble in brown airlessness, whitened in light, a mildew glare, that stumble hand in hand, blinded, retching. Wanting it, wanting to be here, the body believing it’s dying in its nausea, my head clear in its despair, a kind of joy, knowing this is by no means death, is trivial, an incident, a fragile instant.    Wanting it, wanting with all my hunger this anguish, this knowing in the body the grim odds we’re up against, wanting it real. Up that bank where gas curled in the ivy, dragging each other up, strangers, brothers and sisters.    Nothing will do but to taste the bitter taste. No life other, apart from.