"Christ, it was better than hunting bear which don't know why you want him dead."
Robert Hayden, p. 84

"We're poor forked sky-clad things ourselves and God knows prey to illusion..."
William Meredith, p. 115

"When he goes to sleep, he says, the world stays in his head like a big spiderweb strung between ear and ear, buzzing like telephone wires, and what he has heard all night, next morning has happened, is true, is there."
Mona Van Duyn, p. 139

"As a torn paper might seal up its side, or a streak of water stitch itself to silk and disappear, my wound has been healing, and I am made more beautiful by losses."
Howard Moss, p. 145

"...and what does all the research of the Impressionists do them when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank..."
Frank O'Hara, p. 210

"We're not our skin...