Kate Bernheimer

“All good animals have secret lives.”

“The home in which you reside it not forever.”

“No longer could I root happily into my mother's company and find comfort in her rounded shape. There was no one to tell me the facts. How much nutrition to pull from the dirt? Would the beetles bring harm? And what of the worms? Friends, foe, or nevermind?”

“Fairy tales represent hundreds of years of stories based on thousands of years of stories told by hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of tellers.”

“Doll-less, invisible friend-less, finally more comfortable in fear than in gladness, Astrid began to live in her head. Or rather inside a small tunnel - a hole - in her head, through which she watched everything gaily depart. She nodded this head and pretended to listen. 'Bye-bye,' she would hear from within.”

“Beer bottles, whiskey bottles, brown glass, green. They fell to the lawn and I'd feel serene. Adam was king to my stilted queen.”

“Thankfully, the farmers understand my request that the children not be allowed to peer through the windows at me.It would be alarming for them to see me with their dolls, to see me using the knife on their faces. There are some things children never should see.”

“I have been transcribing those poems and considering how lucky we are to live longer than flowers, even if not much happens to us.”