Status Updates From Night Sky with Exit Wounds

“From men, I learned to praise the thickness of walls. / From women, / I learned to praise.”

“Turn back & find the book I left / for us, filled / with all the colors of the sky / forgotten by gravediggers. / Use it. / Use it to prove how the stars / were always what we knew / they were: the exit wounds / of every / misfired word.”

“As if to look down / on the dead is to look up / at my own face. … If I close my eyes / I’m inside the piano again / & only. If I close my eyes / no one can hurt me.”

“Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once.”

“My mother said I could be anything / I wanted—but I chose to live.” (Thanksgiving 2006)