When You Started Thinking It Was Easy,

I'm Incredibly Restless. I Read A Lot Of Poetry. I Also Find Myself Reading The First 20 Pages Of Everything, Looking For Something. And You Know What? I'm Usually Looking For The Book I'm Writing. And It's Not Out There!

The Santa Anas Blew In Hot From The Desert, Shriveling The Last Of The Spring Grass Into Whiskers Of Pale Straw. Only The Oleanders Thrived, Their Delicate Poisonous Blooms, Their Dagger Green Leaves. We Could Not Sleep In The Hot Dry Nights, My Mother And I.

If Evil Means To Be Self-motivated, To Be The Center Of One’s Own Universe, To Live On One’s Own Terms, Then Every Artist, Every Thinker, Every Original Mind, Is Evil.

Only Peons Made Excusses For Themselves She Taught Me. Never Apologize, Never Explain.

I Wondered Why It Had To Be So Poisonous. Oleanders Could Live Through Anything, They Could Stand Heat, Drought, Neglect, And Put Out Thousands Of Waxy Blooms. So What Did They Need Poison For? Couldn't They Just Be Bitter? They Weren't Like Rattlesnakes, They Didn't Even Eat What They Killed. The Way She Boiled It Down, Distilled It, Like Her Hatred. Maybe It Was A Poison In The Soil, Something About L.a., The Hatred, The Callousness, Something We Didn't Want To Think About, That The Plant Concentrated In Its Tissues. Maybe It Wasn't A Source Of Poison, But Just Another Victim.