The snow has quietness in it; no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.

Do you like me?” No answer. Silence bounced, fell off his tongue and sat between us and clogged my throat. It slaughtered my trust. It tore cigarettes out of my mouth. We exchanged blind words, and I did not cry, I did not beg, but blackness filled my ears, blackness lunged in my heart, and something that had been good, a sort of kindly oxygen, turned into a gas oven.

I am stuffing your mouth with your promises and watching you vomit them out upon my face.

The grass as bristly and stout as chives and me wondering when the ground will break and me wondering how anything fragile survives

I have been cut in two.

When I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do.

The boys and girls are one tonight. They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies. They take off shoes. They turn off the light. The glimmering creatures are full of lies. They are eating each other. They are overfed. At night, alone, I marry the bed.