proulx

As it did go. They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, "I'm not no queer," and Jack jumped in with "Me neither. A one-shot thing. Nobody's business but ours." There were only the two of them on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back and the crawling lights of vehicles on the plain below, suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dongs barking the dark hours. (260)

"You're too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whore-son bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you." (276)

Annie Proulx. "Brokeback Mountain." Close Range: Wyoming Stories. New York: Scribner, 1999. 253-283.

o'neill

I tell you, it's a conspiracy against the working man. If you're at hurling and you curse in English they send you off the field. But they won't teach you to curse in Irish. They think our native tongue is good for nothing but praying in. That's why the priests is for it. They think there's no words in it for, I don't know, anything the priests is against. They'd have us blessing ourself in Gaelic the day long. And what worth is a blessing to a working man? For an ignorant heathen whoring bastard working Irish man? (98)

Jamie O'Neill. At Swim, Two Boys. New York: Scribner, 2001.

moore

How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are always two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterward, presses her mouth upon the traveler's mouth, in order to make the mouth work, to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place and speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye's instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That's where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up. The narrator comes and makes a slow, fake song of the mouth's eager devastation. (237)

Moore, Lorrie. "People Like That Are the Only People Here." Birds of America. New York, Picador, 1998. 212-250.

moore

Every house is a grave, thought Ruth. All that life-stealing fuss and preparation. Which made moving from a house a resurrection—or an exodus of ghouls, depending on your point of view—and made moving to a house (yet another house!) the darkest of follies and desires. At best, it was a restlessness come falsely to rest. But the inevitable rot and demolition, from which the soul eventually had to flee (to live in the sky or disperse itself among the trees?), would necessarily make a person stupid with unhappiness. (191)

To Ruth, it seemed so sad and true, just like life: someone assumed the form of the great love of your life, only to reveal himself later as an alien who had to get on a spaceship and go back to his planet. Certainly it had been true for Terence. Terence had gotten on a spaceship and gone back long ago. Although, of course, in real life you seldom saw the actual spaceship. Usually, there was just a lot of drinking, mumbling, and some passing out in the family room. (200-201)

Moore, Lorrie. "Real Estate." Birds of America. New York: Picador, 1998. 177-211.

moore

Those had been strange, bold nights, a starkness between them that was more like an ancient bone-deep brawl than a marriage. But ultimately, it all remained unreadable for him, though reading, he felt, was not a natural thing and should not be done to people. In general, people were not road maps. People were not hieroglyphs or books. A person was an infinite pile of rocks with things growing underneath. (148)

After dinner, they lie in their motel bed and kiss. "Ah, dear, yes," murmurs Quilty, his "dears" and "my dears" like sweet compresses in the heat, and then there are no more words. Mack pushes close, his cool belly warming. His heart thumps against Quilty's like a water balloon shifting and thrusting its liquid from side to side. There is something comforting, thinks Mack, in embracing someone the same size as you. Something exhilarating, even: having your chins over each other's shoulders, your feet touching, your heads pressed ear-to-ear. Plus he likes—he loves—Quilty's mouth on him. A man's full mouth. There is always something a little desperate and diligent about Quilty, poised there with his lips big and searching and his wild unshaded eyes like the creatures of the aquarium, captive yet wandering free in their enclosures. With the two of them kissing like is—exculpatory, specificity, rubric—words are foreign money. There is only the soft punch in the mouth, the shrieking and feeding both, which fills Mack's ears with light. This, he thinks, this is how a blind man sees. There is nothing at all like a man's strong kiss: apologies to the women of Kentucky. (160)

Moore, Lorrie. "What You Want to Do Fine." Birds of America. New York: Picador, 1998. 143-178.