“He had to bury his mother. In the tiny mirror his face looked like his own but sweatier, seizing with the Boeing's jostle and shock. How many planes had he boarded today? All nausea, all innards in upheaval. His head, muddled puddle of a brain, defiant, worked in spurts. His wife guiding him gate to gate, plane to plane. It was agony conforming to new heights, to hit the ground. He was a ball juggled into the air, New Mexican air, Texan air.”

“Yes, I’m sure your dad paid for the beers. Of course the ice cream melted. The tampons were Playtex, not OB.”

“My grandmother in the dining room with the deck of cards. My grandfather in the garage with the red rubber ball on a fishing line that lets you know when to stop driving.“

“I see the ghost who once was a boy / who played baseball but loved fútbolI see the ghost who once was a boy / who lost his boot in a snow drift”

“Product placement has been commonplace in television and cinema since the very beginning. Slides were inserted into early movies, advertising stores, and household items. Television continued this trend with soap powder, toothpaste, you name it, bankrolling entire genres of programming. These days, computers and tablets, soft drinks, and sugary cereals are subtly, and not so, revealed on our screens. And why not? They help pay for the production of our entertainment. At some point along the way, fiction was excluded from this lucrative arrangement and as such made claim to literature clinging true to art, unfettered by the pernicious influence of cold hard cash.” 

“This is your ticket to passing the Bechdel Test! Here are 28 ideas to get you started. Use these teaser lines to begin your scene. For example, the answer to number 2 might be lemon zest. The answer to number 16 might be “Yea, but you go first.” Expand from there!”

“I tried that with Callie once, asking her about people in China, about a month ago when it was the holidays and things still felt new. She said I should ask about India instead, because “don’t they have that law in China about one child per couple?” Pretty sure she’s right. One child per, maybe two.”

“Look forward, or look back. / These are the options. / Tread softly to the altar. / Pause briefly. Unburden.”

“I lose my glasses so often, I keep old pairs all over the house. Recently I lost my mother. And not long before that my father. I lost my first husband, though he’s still alive, and I know where he is. “

“Over the coming week the remains would be added to the trough; two dozen runts so chalked-full of vaccines they would keep the whole drove of five-hundred healthy until spring.”

“Echo dreams of being an Onassis / lookalike. Dreams sheer textiles, greenrooms”

“Close your eyes / & imagine nothing we tell each other, or / imagine romance: downtown Santa Ana &”

“I gave the #piles people the benefit of the doubt. We’d been through a trauma. School closed for three weeks after it happened. When it opened again, those old WWJD bracelets became popular. In case another disappearance happened, kids wanted other kids to think they were saved.”

“Finally, I hand my uncle the three Napa cabbages. He unwraps the scarf and hands it to his wife, who is pleased. He gives one of the cabbages back to me. I think he is also pleased, but then I make the mistake of saying these are also from my father, but he sees the lie and laughs.”

“The kids asked if the old man Lily used to be also liked swinging. She said yes, of course, I made moving pictures, after all.”

“Add a handful of errant youth. Our teens will provide the yeast, allowing the legend to rise. Already they have scaled the exterior and breached the hollow core, where dark water now fills the bottom of the cylinder. The surface appears placid, a fathom beneath the hazardous perch of our delinquent heroes.”

“Depression has been found to be likely / familial, an unconducted orchestra / of blood left”

“But now, she is crying and all of the children are gathered around her. Short, ugly noises come from her throat. Why isn't Angie,  the recess attendant coming for her? Angie will be here any moment now.”

“When we’re finished eating, my sister sets the pizza box on top of a stack of used take-out containers piled on top of the garbage. My sister has a black heart tattooed on her chest, the first tattoo she ever got, back in high school – when she met Zeb, ten or so years later, she had the black heart engulfed in wild blue flames. The tips of the flames are visible over the neckline of her shirt as she bends to put the leftover pizza slices in the fridge.”

“my friend, an elegy that has taken into account, into heart & October wind, / the weight of someone’s soft”