I Stared At Her Black Hair. It

I Had Always Been In Love With Him. I Counted The Lashes Of Each Closed Eye. He Had Been My Almost, My Might Have Been, And I Did Not Want To Leave Him

The Stains Could Be Seen Only In The Sunlight, So Ruth Was Never Really Aware Of Them Until Later, When She Would Stop At An Outdoor Cafe For A Cup Of Coffee, And Look Down At Her Skirt And See The Dark Traces Of Spilled Vodka Or Whiskey. The Alcohol Had The Effect Of Making The Black Cloth Blacker. This Amused Her; She Had Noted In Her Journal: 'booze Affects Material As It Does People'.

Life Is A Perpetual Yesterday For Us.

These Were The Lovely Bones That Had Grown Around My Absence: The Connections-sometimes Tenuous, Sometimes Made At Great Cost, But Often Magnificent-that Happened After I Was Gone. And I Began To See Things In A Way That Let Me Hold The World Without Me In It. The Events That My Death Wrought Were Merely The Bones Of A Body That Would Become Whole At Some Unpredictable Time In The Future. The Price Of What I Came To See As This Miraculous Body Had Been My Life.

Now I Am In The Place I Call This Wide Wide Heaven Because It Includes All My Simplest Desires But Also The Most Humble And Grand. The Word My Grandfather Uses Is Comfort. So There Are Cakes And Pillows And Colors Galore, But Underneath This More Obvious Patchwork Quilt Are Places Like A Quiet Room Where You Can Go And Hold Someone's Hand And Not Have To Say Anything. Give No Story. Make No Claim. Where You Can Live At The Edge Of Your Skin For As Long As You Wish.