“It is 1987, and we are at a Braves game at Fulton County Stadium on July 4^th. In the foreground, Dad squints through large-paned tinted eyeglasses.”

“Once, an octopus—many-hearted, hive-brained, boneless, muscular as a cloud—constructed a human form out of cheap materials that he knew would fall apart after eighty years at the most. He floated down into the human body to begin his adventure.”

“Ours began, like all great love stories, in a critical theory class.”

“The plane has drifted into space. Overcome by fatigue, she fell asleep.”

“Vicky Carrillo, Carlos Carrillo, and their two kids had been living in their little rental house for five years when Gloria Donne bought the house next door, along with the field behind it, and started her organic tomato farm.”

“The tour guide Octavio has a half-inch brown rectangle of decay between his two front teeth.”

“My grandma Borka referred to one’s other half as an esh, or more precisely iesh, because people in the part of Bulgaria closer to Russia speak in that dialect, softly. Iesh means the second thing in a pair…”

“As soon as you see me, net me. Keep me in a cage and jab out my eyes with a pair of golden nail scissors.”