Love. When it's good, it burns like fire. When it ends, it plunges you into darkness and leaves you cold and alone.

In "Strings of Milo," poet Estelle Roher writes of the passion and melancholy of love. Here, laid out on paper, is the most essential of human emotions-love-in all the myriad ways we express and experience it.

Roher divides her poetry collection into two sections-Red and Black. In Red, she delves into the erotic, passionate side of love, where even the simple act of sharing a cup of coffee can trigger waves of desire.

In Black, however, the tone changes. These are...