You are either born a writer or you are not.

The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early and the scavengers passing down the steep canyons with their torches trod silky holes in the drifted ash that closed behind them silently as eyes.

Not all dying words are true and this blessing is no less real for being shorn of its ground.

Any time you're throwin dirt you're losin ground.

My daddy used to tell me not to chew on somethin that was eatin you.

He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he.

She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift.