When you talk about "infertility" you're already using a land-based metaphor - a woman's body compared to property, to be considered fruitful or barren. And "estate" encompasses both legacy and landscape. Think of Emerson, referring to his son's death as "the loss of a beautiful estate."

I can't even imagine having twins.

I don't experience "emotions" then "analyze" them; they always reach me pre-analyzed.

I'm blissfully not writing anything. Just doing a lot of reading and hopefully some thinking as well.

Part of my reaction to my diagnosis of infertility was deeply sarcastic and critical, part of it was morbid, part of it was numb, part of it was neurotic and desperate. To mush all of those notes together would cancel them out. I ended up just trying to keep them as separate as possible.

When you think about the concept of infertility, for example, it's not just medical; it's a repository of so many personal and societal meanings - religious, legal, sexual - encompassing mortality and sin and family and eternity.

I tell my students to think of poems as language plus, language with value added beyond its everyday use.