I turn off the radio, listen to the quiet. Which has its own, rich sound. Which I knew, but had forgotten. And it is good to remember.

The things that brought me the most comfort now were too small to list. Raspberries in cream. Sparrows with cocked heads. Shadows of bare limbs making for sidewalk filigrees. Roses past their prime with their petals loose about them. The shouts of children at play in the neighborhood, Ginger Rogers on the black-and-white screen.

I hadn't realized how much I'd been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to.

There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.

He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the good place, and a heart-shaped leaf lay trapped in the hollow if his throat as though it were planned, though of course it was so perfect it couldn't have been planned.

Do you think that people ever really do believe they will die, that the world will just go along as always without them? I wonder if we aren't all a little surprised at the moment of crossover, if we don't look back over our shoulders saying, Now hold on.

Abstracts are real and time is a lie, it cannot be measured when one moment can expand to hold everything.