“Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.”

“You have me like a drawing, erased, coloured in, untitled, signed by your tongue.”

“Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.”

“I like pouring your tea, liftingthe heavy pot, and tipping it up,so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.Or when you’re away, or at work,I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I saybut it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,as the women harvest the slopesfor the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.- Tea”

“The Latin names of plants blur like belief.”

“I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.”

“She stood upon a continent of ice, which sparkled between sea and sky, endless and dazzling, as though the world kept all its treasure there; a scale which balanced poetry and prayer.”