“She immediately hooked me up to an ultrasound, checked for a heartbeat and smiled: ‘Everything’s fine with the baby,’ she said. ‘Look, he’s kicking!’ She took a screenshot of my little boy punching…

“After all, you might postulate, Socrates himself/Was an infantryman, wearing leather with nameless stains,/On latrine duty, chewing olives, pursuing the elf/Called the soul as he chatted. Serene, undismayed/He lived and stayed sane .…

“And what the leaves told me, now that I was listening, was that I have it all wrong. Leaves are not part of the trees and shrubs that grow them. They only live…

“Though Steadman and I—on those so very rare occasions when we meet—are more or less overcome, for the duration of our time together, and all but speechless, remembering our mutual losses, we also…

“I am constantly relocating, moving from room to room. I dare not stay in one place for too long . . . . When Emily starts a home project, she is relentless—a project…

“Before I explain what I mean by survival, let me clarify that the mastery I speak of is not simply the control of breath and body, but of thoughts, speech, behavior towards others,…

“John’s Daddy was a firm believer in the afterlife. It was all that kept him going. There had to be some reason, some make-up for all of the bullshit that life threw at…

“But to remember something we need to forget/something, a different truth. My grandmother/believed that if you dab any convenient spot on your body/with iodine daily/it will help you keep your memory in old…

“Every summer, my mother, whose stage name was Sherry Linden, worked as a pianist/singer in different resort towns throughout New England. When I was eleven, she began working at the famous Oceanside Hotel,…

“But, Oh Best Beloved, without psalms of lament, we are cut off from our anger or our grief. We give up the opportunity to be honest with God about our emotions. Just as…