Cool-looking authors No. 9

Gavin James Bower, author of the novels "Made in Britain" and "Dazed & Aroused"

Reflection

The air was so quiet
he could hear
the broken
pieces of the sun
knocking the water.

— Flannery O'Connor, "The River"

Marriage

She may have been the first
to say the words out loud,
but she was only giving voice
to a thing I'd been trying not
to know for a long, long time.

When she said that it was
him or me, the words
rang out like church bells,
shuddering through my bones.

For two days, they sat
in the pit of my belly,
making me sick.

— Joshilyn Jackson, "Backseat Saints"

Fate

Empires are built, however,
by laying the groundwork
for their own destruction.

— Michael Chabon, essay "Fan Fictions (on Sherlock Holmes)"