“As the little girl and her mother passed by, the animals went through the motions of confinement.”

“Streetlights smudge the walls with amber.”

“limbs that glide / as they tread the paths we follow”

“It was impossible for my father to keep still.”

“An earthquake goes off at the table.”

“Tomorrow they’ll flip the switch on the machine that helps Papi’s lungs do their job, but tonight Mom’s making Brussels sprouts.”

“He’s got me. He always knows how to get me. Lets me paint myself into a corner, then watches me squirm.”

“When his voice boomed, ‘Cut it out’, there was silence and conformity.”

“Dusk had just started to unfold.”

“I call out your name in glass bottles shattered against concrete walls, and in the wind that anxiously rushes through the corridors of abandoned tenements.”

“one day / men / will realise / they too / gave birth”

“I was going to ask him to place both hands on the pole, but he was a grown man.”

“As burgerish Torvald smites the ivory keys / With spousal diligence, his manly face /
A study in patient tolerance”

“The sound is intense, and Hank’s moves are jarring. He’s swinging his arms and head around like a maniac.”

“My 3D brain is a frog ready to leap, a shrivelled beggar on the street.”

“In summer, / sweat drips into the mouth like sunshine”

“He entertained us with references to St. Augustine, the Roman origins of ketchup and the economic ramifications of the common cold.”