To cross the border beyond

Having been blown away
by a book
I am in the gutter
at the end of the street
in little pieces
like the alphabet

-Mary Ruefle, from "White Buttons" as found in Trances of the Blast
Title: Octavio Paz, The Double Flame
Image: Trinity Site explosion, 0.016 seconds after explosion, July 16, 1945

Blind as we are to Seeing

     All words are masks and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.

  -Steven Millhauser


Image: Claudia Drake, Moira, 2007
 

Title: Miguel Hernández

Under the Seams

"When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up 

 

something."

 

-Andy Warhol

Title: Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

Image: Found

Worn thin to the width of a quill

“What do you do there, moon, in the sky? Tell me what you do, 

 

silent moon. When evening comes you rise and go 

 

contemplating wastelands; then you set.” 
 

-Giacomo Leopardi

Image: John Divola, Quarter Moon, 1987
Title: Sara Teasdale

In what distant deeps

    I wanted to live among books.

-Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading
Image: Kerry Mansfield
Title: William Blake, from “The Tyger”