Quotes from Tess Gallagher

That's what poems are for, unlivable love.

When you hug someone you want it to be a masterpiece of connection, the way the button on his coat will leave the imprint of a planet in my cheek when I walk away.

It's a dangerous mission. You could die out there. You could go on forever.

Don't move. I like this ledge of loose diamonds waiting to be spilled into the night. Let's shine awhile without touching. Sensuality is, after all, a river that is always waiting.

So remembering is only one more way of being alone when the voice has gone everywhere in the dusk of the porches looking for the last thing to say.

That's what poems are for, unlivable love." epigraph to "In Lilac-Light

Did you think a little time and death would stop me?

Ours is another luster, as if a soul had died outside the world and divided itself in two — Tess Gallagher, from "I Don't Know You," Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2011)

Last of his toothpaste, last of his Wheat Chex, last of his 5-Quick-Cinnamon-Rolls-With-Icing, his Pop Secret Microwave Pop- corn, his Deluxe Fudge Brownie Mix next to my Casbah Nutted Pilaf on the sparser shelf, I'm using it all up. Chanting: he'd-want-me- to-he'd-want-me-to. To consume loss like a hydra-headed meal of would-have-dones accompanied by missed-shared-delight. What can I tell you?

Heart, it doesn't matter. We were only sleeping to let the poem know where to find us. Now let it rain. Let the avalanche of hours we've spent apart have their say. Only they have the power to make these words bear my heartprint as they fall outside the dream. — Tess Gallagher, from "Because the Dream Is My Tenderest Arm," Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2011)

I entered this world not wanting to come. I'll leave it not wanting to go. All this while, when it seemed there were two doors, there was only one--this passing through.

In daylight we pick up our tinned rations and hike off, every artery and nerve of us, into the rest of our commemorative lives.

Our meditations waver and recover us, waver and reel us in to our bodies like fish willing at last to take on the joy of being fish, in or out of the water. When we gather at last at the summit and sit with him we know we have moved the mountain to its top as much as it carried us deeply into each step.

If you've lived only by reasonableness, well, you have missed the show, haven't you?

Heart, you are only the shell of a confessed desire wondering what to do next. — Tess Gallagher, from "Because the Dream is My Tenderest Arm," Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2011)