Pain is part of sports, I know. Not feeling pain runs in our family, Jerry says. I always say I can’t understand how you can teach someone to be tough without hurting them. He says I say that because I’m not a man.

Sometimes two people look like delicate objects,
sound like road-work and thunder.

We duty, gender and tribe in our house. Split blades of grass.
Elope from garden and seed, to stove and head of table.

We look like a honeymoon with no boundaries.
A riot of patterns, draft of wisdom and splintering,
entire palette of laughter and bickering.

Good stories aren’t just beginning, middle, and ending, and entertaining. That’s fine, those are of value. But a good story haunts you for a while. There’s something in there you want to keep thinking about and maybe go back to that story again. That’s what I think a good writer should do: keep haunting the reader for a while, about what you’re saying, about how or why, so that the reader says, “I can’t just let it go.”

When I am almost asleep, there is a noise. A noise like singing. A noise humming or whispering but a song too, like maybe Mary is singing or maybe someone else. It comes from far away.