the marriage twists, holds firm, a sailor's knot.

The beautiful feeling after writing a poem is on the whole better even than after sex, and that's saying a lot.

But my future is a secret. / It is as shy as a mole.

Somebody who should have been born is gone.

The trouble with therapy is that it makes life go backwards.

The summer has seized you, as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw lemons as large as your desk-side globe-that miniature map of the world-and I could mention, too, the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic bugs all engorged. Or I even think of the orchard next door, where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell. And once, with our first backyard,I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat.

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