"We knew, love, and that was all we were ever offered."

"In the years that separate, in the tongues that divide and conquer, in the love that was a language in itself, you ne…"

"I ran flushed and shadowed by no one alone I settled stiff in mouth with the words women gave me."

"And finally, it is me only guessing at what secrets or hatreds they share."

"Reading African American women poets politicized me. And it was the fact that poetry politicized me that had to do wi…"

"I intended all of that. And this is what I like about this, and drawings like draw, like the gunman. I call this the …"

"This is the conscience of trauma. This is a grief book. That's how I refer to it, privately. It's my grief book becau…"

"When I first went to Mexico in 1974 and was involved in Chicano teatro—Mexican American guerilla theater—I realized t…"

"They spotlight those who walk like a dream, with no one waiting in the shadows to palm them back to living."

"And late that night I tasted the last of the sweet fruit, sucked the rich pit and thought nothing of death."