A poet can't afford to be aloof. The tools of his trade are the people he bumps up against.

Strangers are just friends waiting to happen

It happens just because we need to want and to be wanted too, when love is here or gone to lie down in the darkness and listen to the warm.

Unless you call attention to your presence who will know you're there? Even a country has to weave and wave a flag as proof of its existence.

I chose the shadows; they did not choose me. I stay here securely not just because I feel plain, but because disappearance is by now the easy way. The habit. The worn path that I can trod knowingly and be assured safe passage home.

It's nice sometimes to open up the heart a little and let some hurt come in. It proves you're still alive.

I cannot speculate on what our cluttered mind will save- sleepy Sundays, or a nosebleed after love. I know only the dying heart needs the nourishment of memory to live beyond too many winters.