Spinebender Reviews

“Real things are made things. Are you a real person, or did your parents make you up? Is that a real mountain or did the forces of the universe make it up? Is the virtual reality of the Internet real or did imaginative people like Steve Jobs make it up?”
― Mary Ruefle, On Imagination

“When I say / I am in love I am also saying the world / makes sense to me right now.”
― Neil Hilborn, Our Numbered Days

“The Hand
- 1952-

The teacher asks a question.
You know the answer, you suspect
you are the only one in the classroom
who knows the answer, because the person
in question is yourself, and on that
you are the greatest living authority,
but you don’t raise your hand.
You raise the top of your desk
and take out an apple.
You look out the window.
You don’t raise your hand and there is
some essential beauty in your fingers,
which aren’t even drumming, but lie
flat and peaceful.
The teacher repeats the question.
Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,
a robin is ruffling its feathers
and spring is in the air.”
― Mary Ruefle

“The idea of a secret that will be revealed always results in one of two scenarios: death and destruction, or self-discovery and recovery beyond our wildest dreams of unification. And in the greatest of sagas, both at the same time.”
― Mary Ruefle