In this passionate, profound collection, Anne Michaels explores one of her essential concerns: 'what love makes us capable of, and incapable of'. Here is the paradox at the heart of loss, the ways in which passion must accept, must insist, that 'death ... give/not only take from us'. A sea in darkness, a woman's hair shining in light, rain falling... how quiet must a voice be in order to be heard? In this way, desire is evoked with intensity and precision. By the end, we are left with a renewed awareness of the mystery at the core of existence; we enter a space that is 'not inside, not outside: / dusk's doorway,' where love remains alive.