Look

The muscular contraction
in both the Wheelers' faces
was so slight that
the subtlest camera in the world
couldn't have caught it,
but Mrs. Givings felt it like a kick.
-- Richard Yates, "Revolutionary Road"

ISO

In search of Great Poets
Something to think about from critic David Orr ...

Truth

You couldn't lie
when you were naked,
but there were
a thousand kinds
of truth.

-- Lynn Abbey and Robert Asprin, "Catwoman: Tiger Hunt"

Memory

The dead
are so easy
to misquote.

-- John Updike, "My Father's Tears"
(from The New Yorker, Feb. 26, 2006)

Wishes

Be careful
what you wish for. ...
Wishes are brutal,
unforgiving things.
They burn your tongue
the moment they're spoken
and you can never take them back.
-- Alice Hoffman, "The Ice Queen"

Kiss

They'll never know
it's actually possible
for a boy
to be so boring
you'd agree
to kiss him
just to get him
to shut up.
-- Alice Hoffman, "Dear Diary"
(from "Local Girls" collection)

Spouse

"Tell me about your wife,"
Emily's voice said in the gloom.

"I love her,"
Chase said immediately.

"Of course you do,
but that's not what I asked.
Tell me about her."

-- Tiffany Drever, "Lesser Waterways"
(in Glimmer Train, Summer 2001)

Sky

The sky in the west
looked like the white
of a bloodshot eye.
-- Stephen King, "Bag of Bones"

Semblance

As he saw it,
civility would restore good feeling,
and the semblance of love
would be enough

to get by on
until love itself could be rediscovered.
And if there was never anything

more than semblance --
well, that would have to do.
He could manage with that.

--Alice Munro, "Silence"
(New Yorker, June 14&21, 2004)

Violence

Bloodstain
on chest
like map
of violent
new continent.
-- Alan Moore, "Watchmen"