“Somehow I pushed God from this place.… Dawn lights an emptied room.… Will you join our table, scarred as it is?”
— Beowulf, translated by Meghan Purvis
“‘You will wrap your arms around him / and love him like a wife / and mighty as he is, he will save your life.’”
— Sophus Helle translation, Gilgamesh
“Who’s gonna love us? / …Us stone women, us women made of coal / and hard things. Rough earthbound girls, hardly darling, soil in my fingernails…”
— Hana Shafi, It Begins With The Body
“Yes, blood is thick, but water is life.”
— Cicely Belle Blain, Burning Sugar