In this moving collection, a childhood darkened by a harshly critical family follows the poet into his adult world, persisting like ..".winter hanging on/ into spring," its "small hail" stinging every surface. Characterized by a wry wisdom, these haunted, evocative poems collapse the distance between past and present. With a stark, transcending grace, Joseph Green chronicles "Ordinary lives./ Ambitions spilling. Plans failing./ Dreams seeping out through the cracks." Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate