“Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.These, our bodies, possessed by light.Tell me we'll never get used to it.”

“how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was anotherappleto slice into pieces.Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon,that meanswe're inconsolable.Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.These our bodies, possessed by light.Tell me we'll never get used to it.”

“Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lakeand dress them in warm clothes again.”

“Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.”

“You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.”

“There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. It’s a Western,Henry. It’s a downright shoot-em-up. We’ve made a graveyardout of the bone white afternoon.It’s another wrong-man-dies scenario, and we keep doing it Henry,keep saying until we get it right … but we always win and we never quit.See, we’ve won again,here we are at the place where I get to beg for it, where I get to say Please,for just one night, will you lie down next to me, we can leave our clothes on,we can stay all buttoned up …But we both know how it goes—I say I want you inside me and you holdmy head underwater. I say I want you inside me and you split me openwith a knife.”

“Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”