“the lesson of the falling leavesthe leaves believesuch letting go is lovesuch love is faithsuch faith is gracesuch grace is godi agree with the leaves”

“I am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that I catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what I said to myself about myself when I was sixteen and twenty-six and thirty-six but I am running into a new year and I beg what i love and I leave to forgive me.”

“they will empty your eyes of everything you love”

“Wishes For Sons i wish them cramps.i wish them a strange townand the last tampon.I wish them no 7-11.i wish them one week earlyand wearing a white skirt.i wish them one week late.later i wish them hot flashes and clots like you wouldn't believe. let the flashes come when they meet someone special. let the clots come when they want to.let them think they have accepted arrogance in the universe, then bring them to gynecologists not unlike themselves.”

“the lost womenI need to know their namesthose women I would have walked with,jauntily the way men go in groupsswinging their arms, and the onesthose sweating women whom I would have joinedAfter a hard game to chew the fatwhat would we have called each other laughingjoking into our beer? where are my gangs,my teams, my mislaid sisters?all the women who could have known me,where in the world are their names?”

“You might as well answer the door, my child,the truth is furiously knocking.”

“blessing the boats(at saint mary’s)may the tidethat is entering even nowthe lip of our understandingcarry you outbeyond the face of fearmay you kissthe wind then turn from itcertain that it willlove your backmay youopen your eyes to waterwater waving foreverand may you in your innocencesail through this to that”