“The two of us had not spent more than 4 or 5 hours in one another’s company for the last 20 years, and our occasional telephone conversations had been an ordeal for both…

“The physicality of writing on paper with an implement that is silent, free from the subversive electronic tension of the screen, and blessedly insignificant, gives me a little purgatory of irresponsibility that allows…

On The Other Hand By Anita Sullivan A Thai “Spirit House,” or “San Phra Phum,” meaning “Abode of the Land’s Guardian Spirit.” “Archaeologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists have known for quite some…

“Are there ‘something elses’ that stop changing, thus becoming immortal in some sense, but at the same time dangerous because they take no further part in the life/death cycle that rounds out our…

“Children are going through contortions on the benches. Two young men talk in Spanish across an aisle. A man and woman speak German over by the water fountain. The young ticket agent makes…

“Here in the familiar countryside with my parents, my two younger brothers, my friend Richard almost exactly my age, the apple orchard, the old house whose upstairs bedrooms all led one into the…

“Speaking as a poet, I have come to recognize that raw emotions are like rare natural resources: they must be actively mined through some extraction process with tools. They do not obey ordinary…

“You can learn a lot about a town by delivering newspapers there before daylight. Delivering newspapers anywhere has now become a quaint ritual tottering its way to oblivion. But I was lucky enough…

“You and I had talked about this. How a single day should be enough—/or less for the two yellow butterflies/chasing each other round and round a distant fir . . .”—Anita Sullivan The…

“When it nears the line in the middle of the road, it stops. It starts to spin—vertically, on its sturdy stem—so slowly at first that I can’t recognize what is happening. But there…