In the pages of this tender, immediate, sharp book, you can find something our world has made nearly impossible: language freed of lies that nevertheless consoles. James Longenbach turns his cry outward, as if toward a friend in a future he won't see, surveying childhood and marriage, surface and depth, Europe and America, with a sonic minimalism buoyed as much by the comedy in our affairs as the tragedy of their brevity. I'm certain I'll remember the most beautiful poems in this book for my entire human life.–Katie Peterson