—the mint green birthday cake we passed in slo-mo on the lap of a man on a park bench under the shade of a Jacaranda tree in full purple bloom. It must have been winter, the window pane cold against …...

If alive, then all alone and bleeding. If dead, then freshly dead. If not alone, then swarmed   with ants and flies, thick flies like biting July berries. If swarmed with maggots, biblical. If...

Sheila Black is the author of five poetry collections and is published in The New York Times, The Nation, and beyond.

Review by Elizabeth Sylvia

Melissa Ostrom author of The Beloved Wild published by The Macmillan Children's Publishing Group