“Among the many words they didn’t use was judōteki-kōgeki—literally, passive-aggressive—which had recently infiltrated the Japanese language via Western theories of psychotherapy. But did Japan need such a word? Maybe that’s just the way people are. Especially as relationships wear on.”

“Imagine Mother, a silhouette in lavender.”

“If I lend you a letter w, you must return that same letter w, the oman in the bookshop said.”

“He may as well have fucked me into the mattress, he was so possessed with it.” 

“The one thing she never felt while she was dreaming, she thought, was suspicion that she was in a dream.”

“Octavian sat there with winter in his eyes, calculating, controlling the narrative.”

“Hibbs had the thing grabbed by the dewlaps and its nose forced skyward.”

“Nothing soars here /
but flies under the radar, obscured.”

“With a final burst of brilliance, the sun falls missile-like to the point where the sky ends and life begins.”

“The eagle, burnished brown,
/ golden, / his beak and the arch /
of his regal neck somehow in tune”

“‘The money first. Please,’ she said.”

“The newborn sky outside is quicksilver and vast, threatens to engulf our eyes completely.”

“At home, Jerry always felt he was some sort of permanent guest.”

“He describes the persimmon tree as an equilibrium of weight and colour, a tree Gauguin would have liked.”

“Unburied heads poke above the paste as / Two childhoods sit in either corner of the cab.”

“Now Mr. Walter, I know you have to use the words available to you, but that one wasn’t really timed to please.”

“We’re trapped. I rip off my seatbelt and stand, then sit, then stand once again.”

“She led me into a copse, / All around was ochre.”