Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“I think you mean a public failure. Because we all fail in private. I failed with you, for example, but no one posted an online review about it, unless you did. I fail with my wife and with my son. I fail in my work every day, but I keep turning over the problems until I’m not failing anymore. But public failures are different, it’s true.”

She liked hotel rooms, thick towels, cashmere sweaters, silk dresses, oxfords, brunch, fine stationery, overpriced conditioner, bouquets of gerbera, hats, postage stamps, art monographs, maranta plants, PBS documentaries, challah, soy candles, and yoga.

But I want to do it anyway. I don’t know how to stop myself from wanting to do it. Every time I run into you for the rest of our lives, I’ll ask you to make a game with me. There’s some groove in my brain that insists it is a good idea.”

“You have had tragedy, yes, but you have had many good friends as well.”

“Is two considered many?” Sam asked.

“It depends on how good the friendships are,”

O crystal heart,

Unbeating lovely:

Such Beauty

Must have

Consequence

There are no ghosts, but up here”—she gestured toward her head—“it’s a haunted house.”

“It’s okay, Marx,” Sadie says. “You can let go.”

As the brain is detaching from the body, you think, How I will miss the horses

There are, he determines, infinite ways his mother doesn’t die that night and only one way she does

Other people’s parents are often a delight.