I spent a week living as a man. Which was actually, I'm sorry to say, embarrassingly easy for me to do.

Nobody's life is interesting enough to warrant a third memoir.

One of these poems I wrote after having been here only a month. The other, I wrote this morning. In the space between the two poems, I have found acres of grace

As I got older, I discovered that nothing within me cried out for a baby. My womb did not seem to have come equipped with that famously ticking clock. Unlike so many of my friends, I did not ache with longing whenever I saw an infant. (Though I did ache with longing, it is true, whenever I saw a good used-book shop)

I said, "It seems like you have fond feelings toward your ex-wife. Are you two still close?" "Nah," he said casually. "She thinks I changed my name to Motherfucker."

Please go to this pizzeria. Order the margherita pizza with double mozzarella. If you do not eat this pizza when you are in Naples, please lie to me and tell me that you did.

This person had arrived, he had illuminated her, he had ensorcelled her with notions of miracle and beauty, he had both understood and misunderstood her, he had married her, he had broken her heart, he had looked upon her with those sad and hopeless eyes, he had accepted his banishment, and now he was gone. What a stark and stunning thing was life- that such a cataclysm can enter and depart so quickly, and leave such wreckage behind!