“I know so little about Vince, but he did like clean clothes, and I've liked men for less.”

“Was I still alive? Or, was it possible to hear human voices even after death?”

“She had found new homes for the last of her birds a week ago.”

“Never doubt the gifts of Aphrodite.”

“Voy a volver allí, a Parral.” “I’m going back there, to Parral,”

“The sun sprawled over the surface of the water like honey, and it shook, sparkling, with deep, silent laughter.”

“Facebook and news apps were still atwitter with quarantine “it” hobbies. Baking and organizing, cross-stitching and gardening. I was still behind.”

“into a box bursting at the seams. You are slung
neck to neck with people bearing grim,
no-trespassing signs for faces.”

“When the car dips, you can see the city wrapped tight around the Delaware

(so pretty so cold)”

“But then why bother? He’d waited for his brighter future, but it never came. Accepting failure as inevitable, he fell into the water.”

“but when you come out the door
to the sight of your buttonbushes
swaddled in spiderwebs,
you take that as an omen.”

“We imagined our lines snagged
on the decayed corduroy coat
that had held down the drowned boy
everyone in town heard about but no one knew”

“My blink at small hands outstretched on this street
pulls blinds that untie, like twists of a knot”

“It goes without saying that these are, of course, bones from dead animals.”

“Neither the glass window, nor the silk sheets will ever be able to save you when it rains.”

“Today, I watched a small bird fly over the open field where I sat on a park bench.”

“In the woods behind the Cock Block—the strip in town with Pini’s Pizza, Wang’s Chinese, Johnson’s Meats, and Woody’s Liquors—there is a clearing overlooking the marsh”

“Earth got swallowed by a planet-eating space whale.”

“It will hurt, but to have any effect it must remain there for some time. Let the pain flow through you, in time you will accept it.”