Julius Lester

From "Basketball Game", p. 54-5

...He kept his sketchpads and watercolor paper on one shelf. On another were empty jars, his brushes, and the watercolor paint tubes. On the walls he put his favorite paintings, not only those he'd done, but copies of paintings by Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper. He guessed Hopper was his favorite. He liked the way everybody and everything seemed frozen in Hopper's paintings. And he had a feeling that maybe that was the way things really were. Things only appeared to be moving or changing, but really they weren't. Like the people he used to watch working in the cotton fields near his grandmother's. All day long he'd watch them, and although he knew they moved up and down the rows with their hoes, they looked the same. And every day it was like that. And every year when he went back they were there. Maybe they were different people, but it didn't matter. It was the same.

From "Catskill Morning", p. 136-7

After that morning their time together became a miracle of silent loving. Each finger of his hand, the whorls in the tips of those fingers, created small flames within her and even on the chilliest mornings she kicked off the red Mexican blanket which covered them as the warmth grew like a child within her. His hands made her know that she was breasts and hips and legs and stomach. It was as if she had never known they existed and only his touch could truly teach her that she was Emily Emily and she screamed and the sky responded Emily Emily. Everything was her and she was everything and her body laughed its ecstasy. Emily Emily Emily girling girling Emily beautiful Emily. His flesh and her flesh, her softness and his hardness. She was the ocean and he a fish. She was Emily and he was Mark and they were flesh and they knew it. They were flesh and flesh was eternal and eternity was the smile between her legs.