“…when we engage with poems, we are in dialogue – within our creative community, with the envisioned reader, with our interior selves, with fragmented and flashbulb memories & the characters of them, with unresolved pasts & half-imagined futures, with nature, the unnatural systems that govern us & the elusive universe that surrounds it all.”

“some apes using tools, tools made of sticks — it’s just — the point, how to get around teeth, claws, red tips.”

“The cannoli were filled to order with ricotta, and one could choose which toppings would be dusted over their glazed and crunchy tops: pistachio, chocolate chips, maraschino cherry, candied orange peels.”

“Let me press my mouth to the flowers and mango on your skin. I am holding more than diasporas in my hands.”

“I feel you more in the filament.
If I were more romantic, I would shower you
with garlic, lemongrass, and scallion…”

“I pray by the trees, I pray by the water, I pray by the dirt. And at night, when I must be a servant to my private, pulsing worship I know You see me and I know You watch me decide whether or not I should wash off the anointed oil that coats my fingers.”

“Four days after the news of  Ricky’s death, you stroll the East Village in a fur coat and a lingering guilt in your sternum. You can’t  decode it. It's not as if you killed the guy.”