“Kirsten’s put make-up on and I’ve tucked in my shirt because this place is fancy, the fanciest we’ve been to in Lubbock”

"A gurgle of a cough and I open my eyes to see his body tense, his lips blue, his breathing faint, and I jump up, clutching him, turning him over, thinking he’s choking, but he’s not choking and his whole face is flushed violet…"

"We four are the only people in the upper floor of a stone-front restaurant, just a little place. In the bar beneath us, people are drinking, and the tinkling glass mixes with the strumming of a bass player thumbing jazzy tunes..." 

"You say only I would pay attention to powerlines on our first day in Italy and say they’re the same everywhere. I suppose they are."

"So this afternoon, as you and I walk through a new-sprouting spring forest outside Frankfurt, holding hands and chatting, I look for squirrels as we talk about the friends we’ll reunite with in America, the winter we’re leaving behind in Kazakhstan."

"The bald man squeezed his friend’s knee, affection approaching passion, then grasped him behind the neck to press their foreheads together, leaning in for another twofold kiss. How long, I wondered, had they circled each other without crossing paths."

"Behind her, the Virgin watches from a tapestry, the woodwork of the cathedral worked in gold, a home for a king, the King, and his Virgin Mother. Behind the images, a single ray of sunlight penetrates a rose and aqua window above."