February 27, 2009

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"

February 21, 2009

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"

February 19, 2009

Memory

The dead
are so easy
to misquote.

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

February 17, 2009

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"

February 15, 2009

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)

February 13, 2009

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)

February 10, 2009

Sky

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

February 8, 2009

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)

February 5, 2009

Violence

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