Tina May Hall

“Second daughter walks outside where everything smells like a ghost. She leaves without her red cloak, without her father's ax, without breadcrumbs for the path home. She has only her proud virginity that clangs like a bell, her will to escape like an egg slipping free and her curiosity, that strange puss, the part of her brain hat claws toward the dark. In the night, in the black fringe of the forest, she could be anyone. She could be the witch sipping boy-blood, the doctor scraping lichen for his collection, the girl who runs and runs and runs.”

“First Daughter throws her wool mitten into the fireplace to see the yellow smoke. She loves things for the colors they burn”

“We git six across the backseat and shiver together, arms and legs wrapped like eels around each other.”

“Underwater, we are transparent”

“We love our secrets; anything hidden is so dear to us, we who are always on display”

“I wanted to tell him I loved him and I couldn't remember how we met. He had things he wanted to tell me too; I knew by the way his breath hung in the air before us. There were so many things inside us, and it comforted me to think of them there, curled up, content, for the time being, to be hidden”

“You kiss my cheek and leave a honey imprint that itchesas it dries.”

“He gives her a lump of grief that has hardened at the bottom of the canvas pocket at his waist. He gives her a hard lump of grief to use as bait. It rings like a coin in the river.”

“Sometimes a child is waiting forher turn on the swingset when everything is shadow.”

“We pass each other notes in the hollows of our collarbones.”

“We will not stick our heads in ovens. We will not throw ourselves from bridges, nor weight our pockets, nor disturb our veins.”

“Beneath the wishbone of her legs, the fox shudders. The moon falls right out of thesky. Fur springs up to cover wounds, its tail traces an “S” on the asphalt.”

“Her mother held a wet cloth to her brow for fifteen months while bees died in the space between the window and screen.”

“We will know each other by the way our watches slip from our wrists, the bruises on our knees, our winged shoulder blades tenting silk dresses.”

“A bridge is no stronger than its weakest span.”

“A man is no stronger than his weakest artery. They offer a point of least resistance, and upon the degree of resistance does their own life and safety depend.”

“He had things he wanted to tell me too; I knew by the way his breath hung in the air before us.”

“I sang colors to counteract the onset of gray winter. Cadmium yellow, brown madder, cerulean blue, I whispered, invoking pause.”