I can’t relate to your razzle-dazzle, your wish
for voluptuous when my symphony is spanx.

Like the kite that caught up to the sky,
painted with clouds, I lost track of it,
but it was connected

by string, something I was holding,
something I could always
bring back.

If you think you are the mermaid, think again.
You are the ocean holding the mermaid afloat,
trying to change the world one dolphin at a time.

Granana doesn't understand what the big deal is. She didn't cry at Olivia's funeral, and I doubt she even remembers Olivia's name. Granana lost, like, ninety-two million kids in childbirth. All of her brothers died in the war. She survived the Depression by stealing radish bulbs from her neighbors' garden, and fishing the elms for pigeons. Dad likes to remind us of this in a grave voice, as if it explained her jaundiced pitilessness: "Boys. Your grandmother ate pigeons.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

You're only responsible for being honest, not for someone else's reaction to your honesty.