“It tastes good, garlic and salt in it,with the half-sweet white wine of Orvietoon scanty grass under great treeswhere the ramparts cuddle Lucca.It sounds right, spoken on the ridgebetween marine olives and hillsideblue figs, under the breeze freshwith pollen of Apennine sage.It feels soft, weed thick in the caveand the smooth wet riddance of Antonietta’sbathing suit, mouth ajar forsubmarine Amalfitan kisses.It looks well on the page, but neverwell enough. Something is lostwhen wind, sun, sea upbraidjustly an unconvinced deserter.”

“The air tasted just the same, smelled just the same. The wind making my hair feel sticky, the salty sea breeze, all of it felt just right. Like it had been waiting for me to get there.”

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

“The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.”

“Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.”

“All I really wanted to do was cuddle back under the blankets, maybe with a certain stuffed toy penguin I knew. Yeah, hiding sounded good.”