In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.

Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms.

When they shall paint our sockets gray And light us like a stinking fuse, Remember that we once could say, Yesterday we had a world to lose.

In a murderous time/the heart breaks and breaks/and lives by breaking.

The unconscious creates, the ego edits.

Poetry is the enemy of the poem.

We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection.