Isamu Noguchi, Akari Light Sculpture, 1951

He wrote the same first line eleven times, and never once got past it.

The garden had been planted by someone who no longer lived there, and yet every spring it kept its promise, indifferent to who was left to see it.

She never once mentioned the accident, and no one thought to ask.

Diego Giacometti, Table aux Feuilles

The dog waited by the gate long after there was any reason to.

By the time the storm passed, the whole town had already agreed on a version of what happened, and no one, not even the people who had seen it, thought to disagree.

He folded the map back the wrong way, on purpose, every time.

Hans Wegner, The Chair, 1949

The photograph had faded so badly that only the outline of her hat remained.

He had promised to write, and for the first year he did, though the letters grew shorter, and eventually they stopped altogether, without either of them deciding it should be so.

Ruth Asawa, Untitled, Hanging Form

She burned the recipe after making it once, so no one could ask for it again.

The lighthouse had not worked in years, but sailors still spoke of it kindly.

They had built the fence together the summer before the divorce, and neither of them, in all the years after, ever mentioned tearing it down.

Charlotte Perriand, Ombra Chair, 1954

Constantin Brâncuși, Bird in Space, 1928

The piano had not been tuned since the wedding, and still she played it every Sunday.

No one remembered whose idea the trip had been, only that they had all agreed to it too quickly, the way people agree to things they secretly hope will not happen.

He kept a spare key to a house that no longer existed.

Jean Prouvé, Standard Chair, 1934

The orchard had gone wild, but the apples still came, bitter and small.

She read the last chapter first, every time, as if knowing the ending might somehow change how she felt about everything that came before it.

Josef Hoffmann, Vase, Wiener Werkstätte, 1905

Lee Miller, Portrait of Space, Egypt, 1937

The tailor never once asked why the coat needed to be so long.

Every winter he repainted the shutters the same color, though no one had ever asked him to, and no one, in truth, had ever noticed the difference.

She kept the ticket stub long after she had forgotten the film.

Irving Penn, Cuzco Children, Peru, 1948

The bell had cracked years ago, but they rang it anyway, out of habit.

He never told her about the letter, and by the time he thought to, so many years had passed that telling her would have meant explaining the silence too.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, 1936

Louise Nevelson, Sky Cathedral, 1958

The fire had gone out hours ago, but neither of them moved to relight it.

She had learned to read the weather by the way her grandmother's knees ached, and though the doctors called it nonsense, she never once found her wrong.

He signed the letter with a name that was not quite his own.

René Magritte, Le Fils de l'Homme, 1964

The boat had not left the harbor in years, but they kept it painted.

They never spoke of the year they lost the farm, though it sat, unspoken, at the center of every conversation they ever had after that.

Fernand Léger, Les Constructeurs, 1950

André Kertész, Distortion No. 40, Paris, 1933

The shop had closed years before, but the sign stayed up out of stubbornness.

He kept driving long after the turn he needed had passed, unwilling, for reasons he could not have explained, to admit that he was lost.

Berenice Abbott, Nightview, New York, 1932

She never learned his last name, and by the time it mattered, it was too late to ask.

The bridge had been closed for repairs so long that people forgot it had ever opened.

Every year on the same date, without explanation, she sent a letter to an address that, as far as anyone could tell, no longer existed.

Gio Ponti, Superleggera Chair, 1957

Wifredo Lam, Sans Titre, 1966

The chair had been empty at the table for so long that no one thought to move it.

They had rebuilt the barn twice after the fires, each time a little smaller, until eventually it was less a barn than a memory of one, kept upright out of loyalty.

Robert Frank, Trolley, New Orleans, 1955

The wallpaper had faded to almost nothing, but she could still trace the pattern with her eyes closed.

He never returned the borrowed coat, and by winter, it no longer felt like borrowing.

Marcel Breuer, Wassily Chair, 1925

No one asked why she kept the porch light on all summer.

Alexander Calder, Untitled Mobile, 1957

She kept his letters in a hatbox and never once read them again.

The house had been empty for years, but the garden had not noticed, and it went on blooming as if someone were still there to see it.

He never learned to swim, and he never once mentioned why.

Jean Royère, Ours Polaire Sofa, 1950

The bread was still warm when she finally decided not to knock.

They walked the whole length of the pier without saying a word to each other, and by the time they reached the end, neither of them remembered what there had been to say in the first place.

He left the porch light on, though no one was coming home that night.

Georges Braque, Nature Morte à la Guitare, 1932

The clock had stopped years ago, and no one had bothered to fix it.

She wore her mother's coat that winter, and though it did not fit her, she never once thought to have it altered, as if the wrongness of it were the point.

Serge Poliakoff, Composition Abstraite, 1962

There was nothing left to say, so they said nothing, and it was enough.

He counted the stairs each morning, though he had lived there for thirty years.

The train arrived late, as it always did, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the old man who had missed it on purpose, twice, that same week.

She left the door open, as if someone might still be expected before nightfall.

Line Vautrin, Miroir Soleil, circa 1955

The letter arrived three weeks after he had stopped expecting it, and by then the news it carried had already made its way to him some other way, so he read it only out of habit.

They spoke of the sea as if it were a person they had once loved.

He kept the letter unopened for eleven years, and never once explained why.

Man Ray, Noire et Blanche, 1926

The bread had gone stale on the table, and still no one thought to clear it away, as though clearing it meant admitting that no one was coming back.

He put his gripsack on the floor at his feet, but held the casket in his lap.

The porch had not been swept since the funeral, and by spring the leaves had covered it entirely.