As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

I guess my writing through time has focused on a number of dimensions that reflect separately on the meaning and social place of the female body.

I had a couple of Asian readers and other folks tell me, "Oh, you have a lot of sex in your writing."

Now that I'm more middle class, I have access to consumer goods. I do enjoy feminine frippery, feminine doo-da, stuff like that.

In a way, this kind of insight or recognition often permeates the way I think of character, how I plot action, and the way in which I use imagery, seeing binaries as false.

It's why muse is so impatient with me. I don't ever go to her until after the teaching or whatever is over.

The city and nature, the built stone and the found stone, concrete and slate, poetry addresses them all democratically.