“The heart with letters on it shining like a light bulb through the trim hole painted in the chest, art history.”

“More and more I feel like a letter—deposited here, collected there. But a letter addressed to no one.”

“Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat's ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they'd not long since been rooted out. There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.”

“...the hearts gone bubonic with jealousy and greed, glinting through the vests and sweaters of anyone at all.”

“I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin.”

“Some people write letters, in the library.”

“oil paints...the look of licked lips.”