What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.

Och likt fotografier, min älskade, våra ansikten snabbt förbleknar

Vad som mera än något annat försonar mig med döden är bilden av en plats: en plats där dina och mina ben ligger begravda, nedslängda, avtäckta, tilsammans. De ligger utströdda där huller om buller. Ett av dina revben lutar mot mitt kranium. Et av mellanhandsbenen i min vänstra hand ligger innanför ditt bäcken. (Mot mina brutna revben ditt bröst som en blomma.) De hundratals benen i våra fötter ligger kingströdda som gruskorn.

(Svensk oversettelse av Steve Sem-Sandberg)

One might be tempted to say that paintings preserve a moment. Yet on reflection this is obviously untrue. For the moment of a painting, unlike a moment photograhed, never exicted as such. And so a painting cannot be said to preserve it.