“Don't use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.”

“Don't send me a text message. I seldom respond to them. Use poetry.”

“Have you noticed the words which Old Testament people use when someone important calls them by name? They don't say "What?" or "Yes?" They answer with the curious sentence, "Here I am". So much is in that sentence: readiness to respond, a willing servitude, an offering of oneself to the other.”

“The poet, distracted by politics, asks of poetry that it make itself useful like metal or flour, that it get ready to stain its face with coal dust and fight body to body.”

“Getting back to the issue of the child," Tina said, harshing our buzz as visual, "I really think you should reconsider. He—"The phone rang. She picked it up, glanced at the caller ID."We're kind of busy," I said, a little sharply. The phone was a whole thing between Tina and me."But—""If it's important, they'll call back.""But it's your mother."I practically snarled. The phone, the fucking phone! People used it the way they used to use the cat-o'-nine-tails. You had to drop everything and answer the fucking thing. And God help you if you were home and, for whatever reason, didn't answer. "But I called!" Yeah, it was convenient for you so you called. But I'm in the shit because it wasn't convenient for me to drop everything and talk to you, on the spot, for whatever you needed to talk about.”

“I remember when people used to think I was smart.I remember when people used to think my brain was useful.Damaged by water, sure. And ready to seizure at any moment. But still useful, and maybe even a little bit beautiful and sacred and magical.”