When I want to take God at his word exactly, I take a peep out the window at His creation. Because that, darling, He makes fresh for us everyday.

Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.

A woman knows she can walk away from a pot to tend something else and the pot will go on boiling; if she couldn't this world would end at once.

Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

Poetry feels like a country I visit without a passport, where I look around furtively, grab hold of something precious, and try to smuggle it back across the border. Any poem I get written down feels like contraband to me.

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.