“Once I have the voice that’s the line and at the end of the line is a hook and attached to that is the soul.”

“And it was only after I found my own Johnny (and got rid of him), only yesterday, when I rescued a northern shoveler from crows on the beach, his broken wing squished against the crockery of my ribs, only after setting him down at the edge of a canal, where he sank in to the long patient task of dying, that I realized what I’d wanted most was to be held by someone determined to save me, someone against whom I could press my unflourishing chest, who’d offer me not just the time of my life, but who’d tear out reams of his yellowing pancreas, and say, Here, baby, eat.”