“We first find Skinner in March 1867 aboard the blockade-running, custom-built steamship the Arkadi, capable of 15 knots, faster than any ship the Turks had, en route from the island of Syros. With him are Colonel…

“Technically, Kershaw lives in Tucker, but there are many place-names in Georgia (Iron Stab, Shake Rag, Snapfinger, and Hog Mountain occur to me right offhand) that I would not want to claim as…

“Because I knew all this, because I’ve seen what villains of Trump’s ilk can do, because I know that creatures such as he attract followers of the vilest levels of humanity, and fools…

“i wear a wedding dress/woven of queen anne’s lace/& wisteria. i slip a garter/of lichen off my thigh./i do not recognize, at first,/the effigy of desire:/burnt moss for hair,/putrid/bog breath./not every incandescence is…

“I believe it means Western capitalists. I learned it from my friend Aaron, a fighter from a land called Haifa. He blew himself up for the Taliban, although it was not intentional. He…

“I remember crawling on the dirt, crawling because I am unable to stand unassisted. I am underneath a structure, in its shadow, while all around there is bright sunshine on weedy grass. I…

“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…

“Of course, I would love to be wrong about all this information. I do not want our species to go extinct, and I certainly do not want us to take all life on…

“The engine ran for one day, and it broke down. We tried to fix it, but it was helpless. After that, we just let the boat drifted to wherever it wanted to. We…

“I knew these plants better now than I ever did back in those botanical days of looking things up and labeling them. I know them as friends, as members of my community, as…