Leslie

“Today I slipped into the bag between two shoes that book
which begins with a father digging--even though my father
was no farmer & planted ever only one myrtle late in his life
& sat in the yard all that summer watching it grow as he died,
a green tank of oxygen suspirating behind him. If the suitcase
were any larger, no one could lift it. I'm going away for a long time,
but it may not be forever. There are tragedies I haven't read.”
― Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City: Poems

“The month of August had turned into a griddle where the days just lay there and sizzled. I plucked leaves off the elephant ear plants and fanned my face, sat with my bare feet submerged in the trickling water, felt breezes lift off the river and sweep over me, and still everything about me was stunned and stupefied by the heat, everything except my heart. It sat like an ice sculpture in the center of my chest. Nothing could touch it.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“What’s rare—what’s holy—is remembering who you really are…
and choosing to live from that place.”

— Carla J. Brooks, 7 Cups of Coffee (Chapter 11)”
― Carla J. Brooks, 7 Cups of Coffee

“In frustration she sometimes asked him what he would do if she died first, to which he smugly replied, "You won't," as if it were a joke instead of her worst fear.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Evensong