"The odds are long. And I / have permission to speak." In a voice as authentic as it is powerful, Challender gives us plain-spoken, heartfelt poems about family, place, love, and loss. Dipping into the well of memory, he evokes generations while recalling a life until now, his sixtieth year, when he has "begun / to wear my death / lightly, try / it on for size." Whether recounting a dream enacting suppressed rage towards a dead brother, watching the three fates attend a son's birth, or riffing on popular culture or academia, the poems run deep with currents of empathy and human connection....