“We came to Macun when I was four, to a rectangle of rippled metal sheets on stilts hovering in the middle of a circle of red dirt.”

“A Ripple SongOnce a ripple came to landIn the sunset burning-Lapped against a maiden's hand, By the ford returning.Dainty foot and gentle breast-Here, across, be glad and rest."Maiden, wait," the ripple saith"Wait awhile, for I am Death!"'Where my lover calls I go-Shame it were to treat him coldly-'Twas a fish that circled so,Turning over boldly.'Dainty foot and tender heart,Wait the loaded ferry-cart."Wait, ah, wait!" the ripple saith;"Maiden, wait, for I am Death!"'When my lover calls I haste-Dame Disdain was never wedded!'Ripple-ripple round her waist,Clear the current eddied.Foolish heart and faithful hand,Little feet that touched no land.Far away the ripple sped,Ripple-ripple-running red!”

“When I recollect her, I see a long list of colors, but it's the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the most. Sometimes I manage to float far above those three moments. I hang suspended, until a septic truth bleeds toward clarity. That's when I see them formulate:THE COLORS RED: [rectangle]WHITE: [circle]BLACK: [swastika]They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.”

“For four days straights, I sit at my typewriter in my bedroom. Twenty of my typed pages, full of slashes and red-circled edits, become thirty-one in thick Strathmore white.”

“Martin was a thoroughly amiable man, a man of wide reading, but when he came to write he mounted upon a pair of stilts, unusually lofty stilts, and staggered along at a most ungracious pace, with an occasional awkward lurch into colloquialism, giving a strikingly false impression of himself.”

“I am only certain of one thing. If we are the sum total of our relationships, my balance sheet is bleeding red ink.”