I told my friend I wasn’t going to stand for it any longer.
“Stand for what?” she said.  “The way we’re being treated,” I
said.  “By whom?” Gwen said.  “By the authorities,” I said.  “But
there are no more authorities.  We got rid of them,” she said.
“Then who’s responsible for treating us this way?” I said.  “We
are,” she said.  “Well, then, that settles the matter,” I said.
“Brian, you’re not making any sense,” she said.  “So now you’re
turning on me?  You’re blaming me for everything that’s gone
wrong?” I said.  “I don’t even know what you think is wrong.  It
seems pretty wonderful to me,” she said.  I went back in my hole
and didn’t peek out for another five minutes.  Gwen was gone by
then.  I started sweeping around.  I arranged some leaves in a
very pretty pattern.  An oriole flew down and examined my work.
Then I crawled back into my hole and lit the lantern.  I wrote
some notes on a pad of paper, notes that would later prove inval-
uable.  I climbed back out and planted some carrots.  Angelo jumped
out from behind a tree.  “I’ve caught you,” he said.  “You’ve
caught me what?” I said.  “Out of your hole,” he said.  “I was
planting some carrots,” I said.  “You think it’s going to last
like this?” he said.  “Like what?” I said.  “There’s going to
be a new take over,” he said.  “There’s nothing left to take over,”
I said.  “They’ll find something.  You’ll see,” he said.  I
crawled back in my hole and shut the lid.  Now for the evening
prayers, which I no longer remembered.

James Tate 

was born in 1943 in Kansas City, Missouri, James Tate won the 1967 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize for his first book The Lost Pilot. He wrote nineteen full-length books of poetry along with many chapbooks, collections of prose, collaborations, and a novel. His Selected Poems won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award. In 1994, Worshipful Company of Fletchers won the National Book Award. Tate taught for many years in the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA for Poets and Writers. In 2004, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 2023, Ecco HarperCollins brought out Hell, I Love Everybody: The Essential James Tate.

In 2025, Press Brake will publish a chapbook of ten unpublished poems, including this one.