In these times of fragments and fragmented times, what are the shapes of our comfort.

A light push, perhaps even a gust of wind, would be enough to send her backward over the edge.

Alone in America, / I tiptoe on the blurred line between the First and Second Amendments.

Needless to say—and it was never said—they hated each other.

We can return home in our reflections, even when the city we knew, the city we were, has gone forever.

It is not an argument you are willing to lose, so you say nothing.

Everyone has stories they’ve kept to themselves.

In the deep hours of the night, a doubt came over some of us, but in the morning we were swept up once again in our desire.

For there to be friendship, some wrongs must be suffered.

What I like about you, Larry, is precisely all those things that are wrong with you.

Like memory, language changes. Our words eddy around the things we fear.

“It’s a gift,” said the priest. “It’s an omen,” said the fortune-teller. “It’s big,” said the acrobat.

We, who are made and unmade / by something we have no control over.

I keep looking out the window / because stopping cannot be seen.

All I ask is to be brave in the face of it / and to be told what else to ask before your answer.

It’s incredibly deep, people’s sleep / inside the downpour-machine

Even the innocent / feel guilty stumbling / up those wide marble steps.

Sometimes I feel for the undead, sometimes the unliving.

There were holes in the story but I knew they were made by the devil’s horns.

He felt himself to be ill-defined, sketched very lightly on the surface of the world.

I’d like to follow Flaubert’s advice and give you three vivid details about Violet, but I can only rely on news sources, which called her pretty and popular.