I told Ing once that she dances like a German and she didn't like it, but it's true: she dances seriously, like lives are hanging in the balance, like precision dancing can save the starving children of India.

absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird

we both smile and we are conspirators.

It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.

I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out.

...all of our laments could not add a single second to her life, not one additional beat of the heart, nor a breath.

He would say her name over and over until it devolved into meaningless sounds - mah REI kuh, mah REI kuh - it became an entry in a dictionary of loneliness.