Quote of the Day (Marilyn Hacker, on Why We Should ‘Be Mindful of Names’)

“Be mindful of names. They’ll etch themselves

like daily specials on the window glass

in a delible medium. They’ll pass

transformed, erased, a cloud the wind dissolves

above the ruckus of the under-twelves

on the slide, the toddlers on the grass,

the ragged skinny guy taking a piss

in the bushes, a matron tanning her calves

on a bench, skirt tucked around her knees.”—American poet, translator and critic Marilyn Hacker, “Names,” in The New Yorker, Sept. 22, 2008