“The sun, like a boil on the bright blue ass of day, rolled gradually forward and spread its legs wide to reveal the pubic thatch of night, a hairy darkness in which stars crawled like lice, and the moon crabbed slowly upward like an albino dog tick striving for the anal gulch.”

“This time of night, the sky was flung wide open, stars spread like a story across the horizon.”

“Dark of the invisible moon. The night now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.”

“The bad news was that the yard contained a dog. A very, very large dog, wide and hairy, like a cross between a rottweiler and a Goodyear blimp.”

“Looking at the sky last night and the moon in the first fresh dark, just a few stars, bright with their cold flares, I had a little crumpled thought, 'Oh well, the moon. It's just another place like California.' One's imagination drags its feet as we are inexorably hauled into the future.”

“We look up to see if it is day or night. If stars burn cool and moon does shine, we take to smoke divine and wine. If breath of sun does belch its heat, we boil coffee and prepare to eat.”