Boxing has become America's tragic theater.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Her visits to her former hometown were infrequent and often painful. Pilgrimages fueled by the tepid oxygen of family duty, unease, guilt. The more Esther loved her parents, the more helpless she felt, as they aged, to protect them from harm. A moral coward, she kept her distance.

This was before voice mail, recorded phone messages you can't escape. Life was easier then. You just didn't pick up the phone.

Like most people, I can be very easily hurt.

I do what I want to do. It was a brash statement of(her)girlhood. Now she was an adult, the boast seemed quaint. For rarely do you know what you want. Even after you've done it you can't say clearly if that was what you'd wanted or just something that happened to you, like weather.

The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.