"The room, which was situated in the bowels of an old Lower East Side tenement building, was hot and smelled like a hundred people’s sweat, even though it was mid-January."
"Beautiful creature of the / stars! Let us tumble and fall / through the green and white foothills / pressing together between / the inky heavens and earth."
"I intentionally dress up to erase the label I owned yesterday. Today, I’m a circus ringmaster; yesterday, a disco girl; the day before, an air-force-pilot-meets-janitor."
"This was before he was my grandfather, before he was Papa. Before his visit to a new country defined his family’s future. Americanness was only a hope."