Peter Kalnin

“After You Left

the weight of your absence
became a black hole revolving
around my memory of you--itself
a black hole. Wavelets wrinkled
the sheer sheet of space and time.
Father, the loss of you is a planet
orbiting what might have been.
I cannot say if the emptiness is
a grand celestial body or a vacuum
so complete nothing can escape. I know
these forces have mass and motion
that bends, calls in, ripples fabric--
distorts the pace of light
for a billion years.”
― Michael Kleber-Diggs, Worldly Things

“But also, as you go through life, you pick up shreds of things, and eventually you are able to fit them together”
― Beverly Cleary, Ramona Quimby, Age 8

“And who's next, Mr. and Mrs. America, now that the Bill of Rights is no longer the law of the land and the racial haters are running the show”
― Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

“Love isn’t like a cup of sugar that gets used up,”
― Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Brave