My worst nightmare is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read.

it's the thing you fear most that walks beside you all the time.

It's what you do that makes your soul.

Perhaps growing up meant we put our knives away and feigned ignorance of the damage.

I stir in bed and the memories rise out of me like a buzz of flies from a carcass. I crave to be rid of them.

A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that' s love by a different name.

In the places that call me out, I know I'll recover my wordless childhood trust in the largeness of life and its willingness to take me in.