Nine Lives

You sit down one morning at a sway-backed diner in a West Desert town. Wisps of story drift from the far end of the lunch counter or a back booth, a story you almost pull together: this aunt, that brother. You make out relationships, intertwining lives. You start to care, to wonder. And you realize, My life is there, too, parts of it. The morning light shifts across worn tile, the door of the diner rings open and closed. The greetings between customers. The unseen short-order cook rattling around behind his window. A waitress refills your cup, and you wait for the next wisp of story.

"This poet has an unerring ear and a beautiful sense of how a line should be timed. 'No line must sleep, ' Charles Olson said, and every one of these is wide awake and aware of its contribution. I like the way precise verbal description ('sun-crested corn snow peeling back each day') can suddenly switch to a more colloquial line ('I slip down from the stone'). This poet has the gift, the light touch, and yet serious ballast on board." --Billy Collins