Lana Hechtman Ayers

Aphorisms

Sunrise isn't what it seems
the sky being colorblind.

Sunset is more dramatic when there are clouds—
life is too.

Looking out over the ocean is like gazing
into music whose lyrics are the mind's teleprompter.

There is no love without wounds.
There is no wound without caring.
There is no caring without tomorrow.

Every today is yesterday’s maybe.

Yes is a door you can walk through alone
if you don't mind the company.

Grieve like a three-old with white glue and a pack of glitter.

Love like the rain loves the clouds—
always letting go no matter what.

Every wound is a staircase not an escalator.

Every door you walk through is better than a window.

There is a way to laugh without breaking any bones.

Every balloon wishes it were the hand holding the string.

Lana Hechtman Ayers shepherded over a hundred fifty poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in such journals as Rattle, The London Reader, and Peregrine, as well as in her latest collection, The Autobiography of Rain (Fernwood Press, 2024).