“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”

“"I’m sorry," she said when they had picked up all of it, their crocheted fingertips brushing for a moment as their spools met. “

Her opera glasses. Her black and white / artistic snapshots taken on the August '36 / return trip on the Normandy. She titled”

““Did he take the head? You’ll never make us believe otherwise. Yeah, we think he took the head, because it was evidence of a murder,” Galveston District Attorney Kirk Sistrunk later told Dateline. Without Black’s head there was no way to tell how close Durst had been when he shot his neighbor, at what angle, or from what direction. In other words, there was no way to know if we should believe his story of self-defense or not.” 

“And still we remained empty. No quickening, no swelling, no children. It was 1907, and we were not mothers.”

“The Husband and The Wife know about shots. The previous month they brought a large box home, special-ordered from the pharmacy. Inside, dozens of needles and bottles of medicine. Two hundred individually wrapped alcohol wipes. A sharps container. Most needles go in The Wife’s thigh. Another shot, one of thick oil, gets injected into her butt muscle. In the morning, The Husband warms the oil by tucking it into the waistband of his boxers while he shaves.”