“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . .

I was gonna write about Mama's funeral but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth zapped all the ideas from my head.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

You lean against a wall,your several million lives still possibleand crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.If poetry could truly tell it backwards,then it would.

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; A body of England’s, breathing English air,       Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side    Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,    In her sepulchre there by the sea—

I decided to retell Romeo and Juliet, but I had no interest in simply rehashing what Shakespeare had covered in the play.

Of course, I’m not speaking of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at all (coming up to its 420th birthday next year, so save your candles)

Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit? I don't enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical with these two feathery maniacs, I don't enjoy singing this trio, fatal and valuable.

Day and night, soft purr, soft pad, Pangur Bán has learned his trade. Day and night, my own hard work Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.

my mama doesn’t say “yes” she says, “ah ha” and suddenly the sky in her mouth becomes Hector Lavoe song.

For Beadohilde     her brother’s death weighed less heavily     than her own heartsoreness