Sandra Beasley’s third collection negotiates a tense interplay between intimacy and distance, the gloss of fable and the coarser edges of lived experience: “What the parable does not tell you / is that this woman collects porcelain cats. . . . This man knows they are tacky. Still, when the one / that had belonged to her great-aunt fell / and broke, he held her as she wept … // The parable does not care about such things.” Ostensibly conversational in tone, Beasley’s lines are crisp and propulsive with verbs, as they examine beauty in a new way: “No one // ever praises the ass of the peacock, / grin of quills that does the heavy lifting.” Such whimsical turns belie a spiritual devotion and the overall effect is suggestive of an illuminated manuscript: “The seams of our gold world weaken … Steady the hand that dares mend a sky.” Beasley’s poems also examine the notion of sacrifice, specifically in long-term relationships, and look beyond easy or pleasing endings.

This book review originally appeared in American Poets, Spring-Summer 2015.