A lover of fairy tales, Kasischke showcases her command of the symbolic, with a keen attention to sound in her exploration of the everyday-whether reflections on loss or the complicated realities of childhood and family. As literary critic Stephen Burt wrote in Boston Review, "The future will not see us by one poet alone ... If there is any justice in that future, Kasischke is one of the poets it will choose." This incandescent volume makes the case that Laura Kasischke is one of America's great poets, and her presence is secure. From "Dear Water": I am your lost daughter and, as always, you are listening & fish. Though I sift you for sunlight, it runs from me in glistening pins, vanishes in the wavering map of your ungraspable heart. When I reach in, you swallow my cold hands again, swallow the joy they'd hold.