The pies browned, the pastries puckered in the cavernous oven I waited to open. - Julia Alvarez

Writing is hard work, a huge commitment of time, energy, faith, passion, and there’s nothing shameful in the attempt, even if the work doesn’t end up succeeding. I’d rather let someone else do the public culling — I’m exacting enough in private.

I'm watching a romantic play
in Plato's cave; half the time I don't
believe in it...
Other times I'm so addicted I'm one of the mainliners...
hallucinating that in truth a man's
body is one of the Absolute Forms.
I look around when the houselights come on
and see no one!

Are we all with acute loneliness,
chronic patients trying to recover
the will to love?
...Sometimes the love
of another wounded one acts like a salve
which soothes the dying self but cannot heal
our lives. And perhaps this is what it feels
like to be human, and we are all well?