In twin chairs by the lakeside tonight
we’ve watched day’s last light

spread like a bright blush over treetops
past the point where cabins stand

abandoned, sealed against winter.
In the middle distance the island floats,

fading. There alone the wild blueberries
hang like unmarked globes over water

separating shore from shore.
Why they grow there but not here

puzzles, like love or the coming bereavements
of autumn, or rumors of empty, drifting skiffs.

For now at least the island remains
part and not part of the unknowing night

as we are to each other
island and mainland, ship and shore,

a familiar place; a mystery.

Educate girls and there will be no more guillotines. That is what my father told me.

My father knew nothing about girls.

She is making herself and not herself—
anguish dressed in baroque repose,

a motionlessness that is never still,
arranged, betraying nothing—

the restrained line of an eyebrow or lip,
the arc of a neck, the skillful reflection

of a sleeve of the moon-white gown
in the olive-green water

gradually assembled, balanced there
in this unexpected moment,

this small world holding its breath.

(From White, Midlist Press First Series Award for Poetry)

Okay. So sue me. Do you have any idea what it’s like being me?

(To an Audience member:)

Maybe you do, but the rest of you don’t. (Beat) People always thinking you’re fucked up or off your meds, eve when you try to hide it. But we can’t hide anything from them. They know. Ever try to ignore someone who’s yakking at you ceaselessly? And believe me, the dead can talk. They don’t have anything else to do.