She is so naked and singular. She is the sum of yourself and your dream. Climb her like a monument, step after step. She is solid.

I lay there silently, hoarding my small dignity. I did not ask about the gate or the closet. I did not question the bedtime ritual where, on the cold bathroom tiles, I was spread out daily and examined for flaws. I did not know that my bones, those solids, those pieces of sculpture would not splinter.

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

A woman / who loves a woman / is forever young.

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

Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins.

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.