An at-times crushing, always beautiful chronicle of sorrow and its afterlife, Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak will haunt you long after you’ve turned its final page.

The girl takes the / umbrella or / does the umbrella take / the girl / lead her out into the wet / evening and / touch her softly on the hand

Five years into your child’s illness, / when you can no longer conceive of life / without its dank presence, you see / a blanched sky bearing a trace of rose / and the moon, risen huge—

I peer into the little darkness / her flesh holds, // thinking how a person can’t stop herself