Andrea Cohen > Quotes

“The body is ninety
percent water, ninety
percent thirst.

I have been searching
for a mineral
that drowns want.”
― Andrea Cohen, Long Division

“We lost our everything,
she said, which said everything
about loss. My accumulation
dictates my ruin; it’s different

from your dismantling, which
can happen slowly or all at once.
What’s crucial is a total
inventory, which may reveal

some one element not obliterated.
We lost our everything,
she said—we—she repeated,
meaning the we-ness remained,

which in the end must be the seed
of re-beginning, the seed that
divines the plow, the ounce
of dirt, the memory of digging.”
― Andrea Cohen

“The other fish think me proud
or discontented with my station.

The birds think I'm beneath them.
Even submerged I am out

of my element, which I fear
the Lord in his haste

forgot to invent. I sent
a letter to him once, pleading:

make me this or make me that,
limbo is hell upon a fish.

I got a message back. It read:
Don't despair, I made you purposely

that way—bounding breathless
into space, the way I made

Adam and Eve, flitting
between the field and ruined gardens

of each other's airy arms.”
― Andrea Cohen, Long Division

“Great griefs are antidotes / for lesser sorrows”
― Andrea Cohen, Furs Not Mine