“She sleeps like a cocoyam. A thing without senses. She sleeps like his mother, unplugged from the world.”

“He feels a second pang now for the existence of perfection, the stubborn existence of perfection in the most vulnerable of things and in the face of his refusal-logical-admirable refusal-to engage with this existence in his heart, in his mind. For the comfortless logic, the curse of clear sight, no matter which string he pulls on the same wretched knot: (a) the futility of seeing given the fatality in a place such as this where a mother still bloody must bury her newborn, hose off, and go home to pound yam into paste; (b) the persistence of beauty, in fragility of all places!, in a dewdrop at daybreak, a thing that will end, and in moments, and in a garden, and in Ghana, lush Ghana, soft Ghana, verdant Ghana, where fragile things die.”

“She would have liked to sit upon a rock and listen to words, not of any man, but detached, mysterious, poetic words that she alone would interpret through some sense inherited from sleep.”

“My mother wasnʹt sleeping with anybody. She doesnʹt even sleep with my father.”

“Then she tried to bore herself to sleep by thinking about things like yogurt and the structure of a gas pedal.”

“She likes to sleep with the radio onSo she can dream of her favorite song”

“And I feel like a real Dad when I read to her at night. She won't sleep without one story, at least.”