“Very rare: blue moon, bright Mars. Both rose just after sunset that late May evening.”

“Go to him, tell him I love him —
at least, give him an inkling.”

“it’s okay”

“Awoke to a lonely cockroach, felt him skitter on my soul.”

“who was i
but a glass
of water

unable to exist
without a pair
of lips”

“I know so little about Vince, but he did like clean clothes, and I've liked men for less.”

“Was I still alive? Or, was it possible to hear human voices even after death?”

“She had found new homes for the last of her birds a week ago.”

“Never doubt the gifts of Aphrodite.”

“Voy a volver allí, a Parral.” “I’m going back there, to Parral,”

“The sun sprawled over the surface of the water like honey, and it shook, sparkling, with deep, silent laughter.”

“Facebook and news apps were still atwitter with quarantine “it” hobbies. Baking and organizing, cross-stitching and gardening. I was still behind.”

“into a box bursting at the seams. You are slung
neck to neck with people bearing grim,
no-trespassing signs for faces.”

“When the car dips, you can see the city wrapped tight around the Delaware

(so pretty so cold)”

“But then why bother? He’d waited for his brighter future, but it never came. Accepting failure as inevitable, he fell into the water.”

“but when you come out the door
to the sight of your buttonbushes
swaddled in spiderwebs,
you take that as an omen.”

“We imagined our lines snagged
on the decayed corduroy coat
that had held down the drowned boy
everyone in town heard about but no one knew”

“My blink at small hands outstretched on this street
pulls blinds that untie, like twists of a knot”

“It goes without saying that these are, of course, bones from dead animals.”