Bambi

“Most / of those he interviewed for the science project had to admit they did not hear the cries of the roses / being burned alive in the noonday sun. Like horses, Geryon would say helpfully, / like horses in war. No, they shook their heads./ Why is grass called blades? he asked them. Isn’t it because of the clicking? / They stared at him. You should be / interviewing roses not people, said the science teacher. Geryon liked this idea. / The last page of his project / was a photograph of his mother's rosebush under the kitchen window. / Four od the roses were on fire. / They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophets / and howling colossal intimacies / from the back of their fused throats.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

“The most beautiful part of your body
is where it’s headed.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

“If you must know anything, know that you were born because no one else was coming.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

“Autumn, whispering through the maples,
Pleaded: 'Die here with me!”
― Anna Akhmatova, Final Meeting: Selected Poetry