“May 6, 1942, Richard wrote Toto, ‘I can’t tell you anything about our movements or what we are doing, but I can tell you that it looks like we are going to be in the thick of things before long.’”

“Sadie despised being alone, but she also despised most people, and thus led a life of conflict. When the pandemic came and everything locked down and locked out, this conflict bloomed.”

“one line or two from poem. / use space slash space to indicate line breaks

“I never learned the value of letting decay and active rest refine me. Instead, I gathered perfection around me like a shield. It protected me, and trapped me in.”

“ I do appreciate things that scare me a little, I suppose, though not necessarily reptiles. I wonder if that’s why I’m still seeing Lena and Janice, my long-time girlfriend who is also still married, though separated, doesn’t know about it.”

“Since you’ve gone, I’ve watched rerun clips / of SNL, Norm McDonald as Burt Reynolds on Jeopardy, /young Will Ferrell bland as Trebek—I laughed, maybe”

“‘Violet does not compliment my personality, we both know this,’ I say. Selina looks down at her nails on the counter, they are long and silver, obviously fake.”

“Close ups of the court, / our sneakers against the asphalt, / your fingertips stagnant.”

“You pull into the last parking spot. You notice you parked a little crooked and want to reverse to straighten up, but there’s a white car with tinted windows behind you.”

“We are sharing the big bathtub / of life, tan toes and blonde hair / snaking down the drain, pulling / at the pipework.”

“We didn’t always have to drive thirteen hours for a peach, but the third year After the People Disappeared, a brutal winter killed the peach trees in southern Michigan. This would be our last peach pilgrimage. “

“Remember when Mom sent us that travel UV, shaped like a dildo?”

“I’ll whisper the end of the love story I started / in 1993 and you can tell me about heaven”

“After watching Black Panther 2 / the man next to me sobs / each inhale heavy”

“When I was twelve the dam broke. It had been built under the direction of William Mulholland. The morning of the flood, the dam keeper noticed a muddy leak and called Mulholland, who said not to worry.”

“ He showed me how to eat a tamarind pod. I told him I’d been drying seeds in the pandemic and asked if tamarind could grow up here. “I don’t know,” he said, “but if they can, it’ll take a couple of years.”

“All those years, my mother sighed in response. She was adding up all the extracurriculars she’d had to chauffeur me to in her head. The financial contribution that had made possible the tiny, toney liberal arts college where I majored in philosophy. All of it — wasted on a job that wouldn’t even cover my student loan payment.”

“If you’ve got the cash and can learn to squint your eyes just right, God can be as pink as cotton candy. Hell, God can even bend into a metonym for TV dinners.”

“It was a Friday night at Borders, almost closing time, and the weird girl was stalking. She prowled the sale bin, snatching up a DVD and holding it near the flap of her messenger bag, as if titillating herself with the idea of shoplifting.”

“I am also in a poorly fitting suit. We, the new adults, have been put on display at the front table. I have met a few of the others before, but I only know Caroline. This is her party.”