“Father, I am an alien.”

“He grabbed a directory and rifled through the pages, searching for the M's. Why was it when you were in a hurry you couldn't find the listing you needed? P...J...N.”

“Thick and soft, it was just as she'd imagined it.”

“And so many things get lost. Not just a set of keys or a photograph of your father with his first truck, but the door those keys once opened, the childhood house you long ago walked into, the father who used to carry you on his shoulders high above the crowds at the summer fair, his body now ashes and shards of bone. You hold these things in place on a page, you walk through that door, touch his face and smell the cigarette smoke on his breath and in his shirt, you make things breathe again in words. You feel the lightness of a ghostly touch across your skin. In that small house on the corner, the porch light suddenly comes on.”

“I am doing the best I can given what I have today.”

“Not long after our final lesson, on one of our Sundays at the lake, my father and I were walking along the shore when he noticed a small rock shaped like a bird. When he picked it up, I saw the quick gleam of satisfaction in his face and felt in an instant that I had less power to please him than a stone.”

“Lord, I can’t live in his mashed potato world. I need my tubers scalloped and diced and baked and fried and different every time. I need excitement and change as much as I need air.”