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Eros, myth, life, and literature in brilliant paintings by Lincoln Perry.

I light fires in the dark wake of space where you have tarried. Or died.

For my part, I do not want a Happy Christmas: I want a Merry Christmas.

This is a crafty story and things are not what they seem to be.

Small valleys and veins give way to a lifted ridge like a rib or an arm bone.

Warm breath in my ear mouthing a name; rivulet folded back in water.

& I said let there be dark pouring from your mouth at daybreak

He could see I was American, but I thought he was unlikely to harm me.

Laurie Saurborn Young

The hut was cluttered with the skulls and bones of small animals.

As a shadow I arouse you will you believe the truth of my mouth.

“Jesus Christ,” Dad said, after the counselor spelled it out for him.

I have many dreams, I say. In my dreams I am better than myself.

The woman who raised the woman who raised me was a mistress.

The Bengalis negotiate their space with corrupt politicians and landsharks.

The stories of terror continued well after the tsunami had passed.

When we wake up, the five windows and the French door are full of light.

For years I thought this light was love, or God, but now I know it’s fear.

Instead of stained glass, give us an oil slick on the New Jersey turnpike.

My daughter swallows arrows of sunlight on her way to the grave.

The beasts and fowl and all manner of slithery thing can love like us.

The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.

This belief. This clinging-to. Vanity. Like painting the wind’s back.

I see the garden far away in itself reflected in the polished spade.

The church was clearly the work of a madman driven crazy by the wind.

In my eyes is the flame of the adolescent he wants to hire.

I received a surprise invitation to a tryout camp at Ebbets Field.

I didn’t want to start a poem with night where there should be a name.

Loving you is every bit as fine as coming over a hill into the sun.

Under Saint Peter’s Gate, I put good foot after bad, and derided, I chased.