And I saw it didn't matter who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone. The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty of the Iranian attendant, the thickening clouds--nothing was mine. And I understood finally, after a semester of philosophy, a thousand books of poetry, after death and childbirth and the startled cries of men who called out my name as they entered me, I finally believed I was alone, felt it in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo like a thin bell.

There's no word for what Young does, only for what he accomplishes-the capturing of small, daily miracles.

Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.

I would say my life experiences are my poetry, whether I'm writing about those actual, factual experiences or not.

How not to imagine the tumors ripening beneath his skin, flesh I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips, pressed my belly and breasts against, some nights so hard I thought I could enter him, open his back at the spine like a door or a curtain and slip in like a small fish between his ribs, nudge the coral of his brains with my lips, brushing over the blue coil of his bowels with the fluted silk of my tail.

That's how it is sometimes--God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you're just too tired to open it.

You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake.