Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself, Counting this row and that row of moccasins Waiting on the silent shelf.

For I could not read or speak and on the long nights I could not turn the moon off or count the lights of cars across the ceiling.

God owns heaven but He craves the earth.

The sea is mother-death and she is a mighty female, the one who wins, the one who sucks us all up.

Maybe I am becoming a hermit, opening the door for only a few special animals? Maybe my skull is too crowded and it has no opening through which to feed it soup?

All I am is the trick of words writing themselves.

And if I tried to give you something else, something outside myself, you would not know that the worst of anyone can be, finally, an accident of hope