“I dreamed you were standing in this dark place and you touched these dead flowers and they lit up like they were electric or something. Electric lilies. Lighting up the Valley.”

“You were just a boy on a bed in a room, like a kaleidoscope is a tube full of bits of broken glass. But the way I saw you was pieces refracting the light, shifting into an infinite universe of flowers and rainbows and insects and planets, magical dividing cells, pictures no one else knew ...”

“The circus tent was flowing pale in the rain like a fleshy flower lit from within. It seemed to bloom in the downpour. Drops of rain caught on Rafe's eyelashes, blinding him as the circus light struck them. He groped for the flap, that slit in the fabric that would reveal her to him.She was on the rope again, her skirt flashing with tiny mirrors, hair braided with petals. He looked up at her, dizzy with it, seeing her face framed in the parasol. There were bluish shadows around her eyes.”

“When Cherokee and Raphael got back to the canyon house, they set up the tepee on the grass and crept inside it. They lay on their backs, not touching, looking at the leaf shadows flickering on their canvas, and trying to identify the flowers they smelled in the warm air. "Honeysuckle." "Orange blossom." "Rose." "The Sea.""The Sea! That doesn't count!""I smell it like it's growing in the yard."They giggled the way they used to when they were very young. Then they were quiet. Raphael sat up and took Cherokee's feet in her hands. "Do they still hurt?" he asked, stroking them tenderly. He moved his hands up over her whole body, as if he were painting her, bringing color into her white skin. As if he were playing her-his guitar. And all the hurt seemed to float out of her like music. They woke in the morning curled together. "Remember how when we were really little we used to have the same dreams?" Cherokee whispered. "It was like going on trips together.""It stopped when we started making love." "I know." "But last night...""Orchards of hawks and apricots," Raphael said, remembering. "Sheer pink-and-gold cliffs.""The sky's wings.""The night beasts run beside us, not afraid. Dream horses carry us...""To the sea," they said together...”

“Dear Angel Juan,You used to guard my sleep like a panther biting back my pain with the edge of your teeth. You carried me into the dark dream jungle, loping past the hungry vines, crossing the shiny fish-scale river. We left my tears behind in a chiming silver pool. We left my sorrow in the muddy hollows. When I woke up you were next to me, damp and matted, your eyes hazy, trying to remember the way I clung to you, how far down we went.Was the journey too far, Angel Juan? Did we go too far?”

“Everything is an illusion; that is the whole thing about it - illusion, immitation, a mirage. It makes me too sad. Its having like a good dream, you know you are going to wake up.”

“If you were sad about something that hadn't happened yet you couldn't be disappointed.”