“I’ve learned to fall like the BJJ player, to protect the body through controlling the distribution of force by slapping the mat with hands open. With hands open. Hands open. Open. O Pen.”

“How can I stand before you in silent symbols with open palms?”

“Like forearm veins, my interests spread in different directions and eventually led to the hands, to writing.”

“The historic beauty of BJJ rests not with its ability to allow a smaller man to maim a larger man, but with its ability to allow any man of any size to survive.”

“So much of control is not authoritative action but mindful waiting.”

“Poets, like fighters, both reap the benefits of roadwork.”

“We were of thirteen minds, like a tree, in which there is one Red-tail and eleven squirrel parts.”