This poem by Alice Notley, published in 1975 in Alice Ordered Me to be Made [which Alan Davies left out on our coffee table after having very kindly stayed with Dante and Nemo while we were in Paris] feels just exactly right to me:

          TO

Do you have a private zodiac? is it enough

to rescue your touch from an enervated

decorativeness? What about your

source     autobiography       literalism (?)

Foxfire matters      My sister Life      Scotch World       Toast     

Tenuous link       Naked       Profound       Superficialities     

Melodrama       Sedative       Tonight the Primitif       That’s twelve

Counting that’s twelve

Do you yearn after unattainable absolutes

denying the stereotype of feminine beauty

to sing and dance and ruff like a dog

and a baby? all somber O shaggy forlorn look

           pant pant pant

you can hardly expect or desire

No now and then this impulse will turn into the magical…

World backbone revitalized diversity living moving

seeming savagely to ignore scores of possible

scenarios? are you intact and carnal a field like

the sky are you are you you

Yes, I am. The canvas is both open and closed.

an almost pseudo subject matter emotionally loaded

impulse a promiscuous gilded fly perfection

belongs only to God and orchestration

                                   I am a tart slice

of female Americana. You can underscore my pieties

anyway you want to.

                              You do it.

                              Leave Me Alone.