“I have dreamed of our bed as if it were a shore where we would be washed up, not this striped mattress we must cover with sheets. [from "After an Absence"]”

“What We WantWhat we wantis never simple.We move among the thingswe thought we wanted:a face, a room, an open bookand these things bear our names --now they want us.But what we want appearsin dreams, wearing disguises.We fall past,holding out our armsand in the morningour arms ache.We don't remember the dream,but the dream remembers us.It is there all dayas an animal is thereunder the table,as the stars are there.”

“Because the night you asked me,the small scar of the quarter moonhad healed - the moon was whole again;because life seemed so short;because life stretched out before melike the halls of a nightmare;because I knew exactly what I wanted;because I knew exactly nothing;because I shed my childhood with my clothes -they both had years of wear in them;because your eyes were darker than my father's;because my father said I could do better;because I wanted badly to say no;because Stanly Kowalski shouted "Stella...;"because you were a door I could slam shut;because endings are written before beginnings;because I knew that after twenty yearsyou'd bring the plants inside for winterand make a jungle we'd sleep in naked;because I had free will;because everything is ordained;I said yes.”

“Despite the enormous evening sky spreading over most of the canvas, its moon no more than a tarnished coin, dull and flat, in a devalued currency; despite the trees, so dark themselves, stretching upward like supplicants, utterly leafless; despite what could be a face, rinsed of feeling, aimed in their direction, the two small figures at the bottom of this picture glow bravely in their carnival clothes, as if the whole darkening world were dimming its lights for a party.”

“I regret the way pain has taught me nothing.”

“Just looking at themI grow greedy, as if they werefreshly baked loaveswaiting on their shelvesto be broken open--that oneand that--and I make my choicein a mood of exalted luck,browsing among themlike a cow in sweetest pasture.For life is continuousas long as they waitto be read--these inked pathsopening into the future, pageafter page, every bookits own receding horizon.And I hold them, one in each hand,a curious ballast weighing mehere to earth.”

“[But the constricted light,the year closing down on itself with allthe vacancies of January ahead, leave meunreconciled even to beauty.]When will you be coming back?”