“Even after she was gone, he passed her place each day: something white in a high window - not a face,but the white belly of a pigeon beating its wingsagainst the pane in the boarded-up house.”

“He stops, looks up at this window, and I can see the white oblong of his face. We look at each other. I have no rose to toss, he has no lute. But it's the same kind of hunger. ”

“Gray fall light came through the nine square glass panes. On days like this, the strips of white wood that separated the glass seemed brighter to the eye than did the window light.”

“In this place of light: he dares to liveWho stops being a bird, yet beats his wingsAgainst the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.”

“Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces. Each half was glowing, and beating under all that white.”

“By the time he climaxed, Eve was arched and her hair touched the floor. Her face was as far away from his as it could get while still having him inside her.They panted like this for a moment, until he realized she was too ashamed to sit back up and look at him. He’d just been at the center of her loss. He’d poisoned the only place she’d ever held her baby. Beckett looked at her long, white form. He ran his hand over a fine white scar he found just under her belly button—the scar somehow he had put on her body.”